The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has been launched by the Centre, which aims to increase the outreach of the health system to village and household levels. The NRHM also aims at mainstreaming the Indian systems of medicine to facilitate healthcare.

The NRHM seeks to provide effective healthcare to rural population throughout the country with special focus on 18 states, which have weak public health indicators and/or weak infrastructure, which include Uttar Pradesh, Uttranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura.

The Mission aims at strengthening Primary Health Centres (PHCs) for quality preventive, promotive, curative, supervisory and outreach services. A key strategy of the Mission is strengthening Community Health Centres for First Referral Care and operationalizing 3,222 existing Community Health Centres (30-50 beds) as 24 Hour First Referral Units, including posting of anaesthetists.

The plan of action includes increasing public expenditure on health, reducing regional imbalance in health infrastructure, pooling resources, integration of organizational structures, optimization of health manpower, decentralization and district management of health programmes, community participation and ownership of assets, induction of management and financial personnel into district health system, and Operationalizing community health centres into functional hospitals, meeting Indian Public Health Standards in each block of the Country.

It has as its key components provision of a female health activist in each village; a village health plan prepared through a local team headed by the Health & Sanitation Committee of the Panchayat; strengthening of the rural hospital for effective curative care and made measurable and accountable to the community through Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS); and integration of vertical Health & Family Welfare Programmes and Funds for optimal utilization of funds and infrastructure and strengthening delivery of primary healthcare.

Every village or large habitat will have a female Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) to act as the interface between the community and the public health system. The States will be free to choose State specific models.