Union Health Minister J. P. Nadda on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, chaired a high-level inter-ministerial meeting with the Ministries of Youth Affairs and Sports, Labour and Employment, and Defence to intensify coordination under the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan. The meeting focused on expanding volunteer engagement, workplace TB screening, and community outreach to accelerate India's tuberculosis elimination mission.

Context

Nadda urged the participating ministries to scale up engagement through the National Cadet Corps (NCC) and the MY Bharat volunteer platform, while also directing that TB screening be systematically integrated into workplace health programmes. The minister stated that the goal is to transform the Abhiyaan into 'a nationwide people's movement by harnessing the power of India's youth.' He attributed the campaign's direction to the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Since the launch of the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan in December 2024, the government reports that over 28 crore vulnerable individuals have been screened and 39 lakh TB patients have been notified. Of those notified, 12.93 lakh were asymptomatic patients identified through active — rather than symptom-driven — screening, a figure the minister described as an 'encouraging outcome.'

Policy Backdrop

India's tuberculosis elimination effort has a long institutional history. The Revised National TB Control Programme, launched in 1997, was later redesignated as the National TB Elimination Programme. In 2018, at the UN High-Level Meeting on TB, India committed to eliminating the disease by 2025 — five years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goal deadline of 2030. The Nikshay digital portal, also introduced in 2018, was designed to improve patient tracking and notification across both public and private healthcare providers.

The TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan represents a continuation and intensification of this agenda, with a sharper emphasis on active case-finding among asymptomatic populations and on mobilising non-health government machinery to reach communities that routine health services may miss.

Stakeholders and Impact

The inclusion of the Ministry of Labour and Employment signals a push to reach India's large organised and unorganised workforce, where TB burden can be significant and screening coverage has historically been uneven. Workplace-based screening programmes, if implemented at scale, could surface cases among working-age adults who may not otherwise present at health facilities.

The involvement of the Ministry of Defence — particularly through the NCC, which has a presence in schools and colleges across the country — extends the campaign's reach to young volunteers who can serve as community mobilisers. The MY Bharat platform, overseen by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, similarly provides a structured volunteer network that the Health Ministry is seeking to deploy for awareness and outreach activities.

What's Next

Nadda's emphasis on a 'whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach' suggests that further inter-ministerial review meetings are likely before the next parliamentary session on health. The Central TB Division releases quarterly notification data, and the figures from the current campaign cycle will be a key indicator of whether the multi-ministry coordination model is translating into measurable gains in case detection. Sustained political attention and follow-through on workplace and youth-channel screening will determine whether the Abhiyaan's early numbers can be maintained and expanded.