The success of India’s health reforms will ultimately be measured not only by the number of hospitals built or cards issued, but by whether communities are sufficiently informed and equipped to make use of what is already available to them.
By Desh Raj Singh
India’s healthcare narrative is usually told through numbers on infrastructure: hospitals built, cards issued, beds added. Schemes such as the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), the network of Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, and the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NP-NCD) have expanded access at a scale few countries have matched. As the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed Parliament in July 2026, more than 44.73 crore Ayushman Cards have been issued, enabling over 12.69 crore cashless hospital admissions. Nearly 1.86 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs now serve as points of first contact closer to where people live.
However, a hospital bed or a health card is of limited use if people are unaware of it, or do not access it in time. This is the harder half of the equation, and it is being tested in a village called Maseet, in Tapukara on the Alwar-Bhiwadi mega highway.
Rural India, more broadly, continues to grapple with a similar set of constraints: a shortage of doctors and specialists in villages, longer distances to a functioning facility, uneven health literacy, and a tendency to seek treatment only once an illness becomes difficult to ignore. Women, in particular, often defer their own care while attending to the needs of the household. The construction of hospitals addresses one part of this problem; the remainder depends on persuading people of the value of preventive care before a health issue becomes acute.
A Region Outpacing its Health Habits
Tapukara lies within the Bhiwadi–Khushkhera–Tapukara Industrial Belt, one of North India’s largest manufacturing clusters, comprising more than 5,000 industrial units. It falls within Khairthal–Tijara, a district formed only in 2023, where public institutions are still adapting to the pace of economic growth around them. The region is also part of the wider Mewat area, which has long trailed on several health, nutrition, and education indicators.
Employment opportunities have expanded faster than health-seeking habits have changed – a pattern observed across much of rural India, and not unique to this region. Many families here continue to consult a doctor only after an illness has progressed, rather than before.
State-level data illustrates why this matters. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 54.7 per cent of women in Rajasthan aged 15–49 are anaemic, as are 71.5 per cent of children aged 6–59 months of age. Hypertension and diabetes are also becoming more prevalent. Additional healthcare facilities alone will not reverse these trends; what is required, in addition, is awareness, routine screening, early diagnosis, and a habit of seeking care early.
A Complementary Intervention
It is this gap that Project Swasth was designed to address. Launched in July 2026 in Maseet village, the initiative is implemented by the Sharda Welfare Foundation (SWF), with support from the Honda India Foundation (HIF) and in partnership with the Gram Panchayat, Maseet. It reflects corporate social responsibility being directed toward tangible, on-ground outcomes – institutional and financial backing from industry channelled into preventive healthcare for the community.
Dinesh, the village head of Maseet, says, “For years, people here have been travelling to places like Bhiwadi or Jaipur for routine check-ups or further treatment. Families have long been demanding that such a camp be organised within the village itself.”
Thanks to the involvement of the Honda India Foundation and the Sharda Welfare Foundation, that demand has now been addressed.
The project is not intended to build a parallel health system, but to make the existing one more accessible, through community mobilisation, preventive screening, health promotion, behaviour-change communication, and assistance in navigating government schemes and referrals. A comparable pattern is often observed in Indian cities, where the arrival of an established hospital group tends to lift the standard of the surrounding health ecosystem. Whether Tapukara sees a similar effect will depend less on the inaugural camp and more on whether the initiative sustains its presence over time.
The first community health camp offered an early indication of the scale of unmet need. More than 205 residents participated, generating over 425 specialised consultations across general medicine, gynaecology, and ophthalmology.
The screening results were notable. Blood pressure checks found elevated readings in 21 per cent of participants, while blood sugar screening flagged another 29 per cent. As some individuals presented with both conditions, 24 per cent of attendees were counselled and referred for further evaluation – many of whom had no prior indication that they were at risk.
Shakuntala, a resident of Maseet, was among them. She had been living with high blood pressure for some time and was on medication, but had been consulting a psychiatrist for the condition rather than a general physician. “I was taking the medication, but I didn’t really know what I was being treated for or whom I should actually be seeing,” she said. At the camp, the attending doctor advised her to consult a general physician instead. The Sharda Welfare Foundation is expected to play a role here by following up to ensure she visits a general physician at a nearby clinic or hospital.
The camp underscored an important point: screening has limited value unless it is followed by diagnosis, referral, and continuity of care.
This link is also where the initiative is most likely to encounter difficulty. Referring a person for further evaluation is one matter; ensuring they travel to a facility, take time away from work, and follow through on a diagnosis is another – particularly in a region where daily wages and factory shifts leave little scope for a second or third visit to a doctor.
Community Attitudes Toward Health
Access alone does not fully account for the low uptake of preventive care in villages such as Maseet; behaviour plays a role as well. In many rural settings, symptoms are managed at home for a period before a doctor is consulted, and routine screening for conditions such as hypertension or diabetes – which often present no symptoms until damage has occurred – is not yet part of everyday practice. Women, in particular, can end up deprioritising their own check-ups while attending to the rest of the household.
It is here that behaviour-change communication becomes a necessary complement to the medical camp itself. Project Swasth works through the Gram Panchayat and door-to-door outreach to build familiarity with the idea of a routine check-up, rather than one prompted only by the appearance of symptoms. The intended shift, over time, is a modest but meaningful one: more people presenting for care before a problem develops, rather than only after.
Facilitating Access to Entitlements
The project also assists families in accessing benefits to which they are often already entitled but do not use. This includes enrolment and e-KYC support under Ayushman Bharat, along with outreach for the Ayushman Vay Vandana Card, which provides free health coverage of up to ₹5 lakh a year to senior citizens aged 70 and above, regardless of income.
Much of this work involves clarifying common points of confusion – who is eligible, which hospitals accept the card, and how cashless treatment functions. Financial protection is of value to families only once they understand how to access and use it.
Syed Javed, General Manager at the Honda plant in Tapukara, said, “Our role here is to ensure that the benefits reach the communities living near our operations. Healthcare is one of the areas where we have committed to long-term engagement; Tapukara is part of that commitment, and we will continue this work.”
A Model Beyond One Village
For the residents of Tapukara, the intent behind the project is a sustained one – not a single health camp followed by withdrawal, but a partner expected to return, follow up, and assist them in navigating a system that can otherwise appear distant and confusing. That intent, however, still has to be borne out: one camp, however well attended, constitutes an early indicator rather than an established track record. In a region still establishing itself as a new district, whether this becomes a long-term presence, or recedes after the initial effort, will matter more than the launch itself.
Rishabh Gupta, Managing Director of the Sharda Welfare Foundation said, “What we have seen on the ground is that infrastructure has grown much faster than people’s habit of using it. That is the gap we are trying to close, not only in Tapukara but wherever we work.”
“Through Project Swasth, we intend to remain engaged with this region over the long term, rather than conducting a few camps and moving on.”
This pattern is evident across much of India: healthcare infrastructure is expanding at a faster pace than its utilisation by communities. Bridging this gap requires sustained local engagement, genuine partnerships with local institutions, and trust between communities and the public health system.
The approach adopted under Project Swasth treats a health camp not as an isolated event, but as an entry point into a continuum – awareness leading to screening, screening to referral, referral to treatment, and treatment sustained through follow-up.
As India’s primary healthcare architecture continues to expand, the next phase of reform may depend less on the number of facilities established and more on how effectively communities are connected to them. Greater convergence between government programmes, local institutions, and grassroots initiatives could strengthen health literacy, expand screening for anaemia and non-communicable diseases, and reinforce referral pathways.
The success of India’s health reforms will ultimately be measured not only by the number of hospitals built or Ayushman Cards issued, but by whether communities are sufficiently informed and equipped to make use of what is already available to them.
The author is associated with the Sharda Welfare Foundation which implements Project Swasth.
