National Urban Health Mission (NUHM)

About NUHM

The National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) as a sub-mission of National Health Mission (NHM) has been approved by the Cabinet on 1st May 2013.

NUHM envisages to meet health care needs of the urban population with the focus on urban poor, by making available to them essential primary health care services and reducing their out of pocket expenses for treatment. This will be achieved by strengthening the existing health care service delivery system, targeting the people living in slums and converging with various schemes relating to wider determinants of health like drinking water, sanitation, school education, etc. implemented by the Ministries of Urban Development, Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Human Resource Development and Women & Child Development.

NUHM seeks to improve the health status of the urban population particularly slum dwellers and other vulnerable sections by facilitating their access to quality primary health care. NUHM would cover all state capitals, district headquarters and other cities/towns with a population of 50,000 and above (as per census 2011) in a phased manner. Cities and towns with population below 50,000 will be covered under NRHM.

NUHM Goals

• Need based city specific urban health care system to meet the diverse health care needs of the urban poor and other vulnerable sections.
• Institutional mechanism and management systems to meet the health-related challenges of a rapidly growing urban population.
• Partnership with community and local bodies for a more proactive involvement in planning, implementation, and monitoring of health activities.
• Availability of resources for providing essential primary health care to urban poor.
• Partnerships with NGOs, for profit and not for profit health service providers and other stakeholders.

NUHM Framework for Implementation

In order to effectively address the health concerns of the urban poor population, the Ministry has launched the sub-mission National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) under NHM. The Mission Steering Group of the NHM will be expanded to work as the apex body for NUHM also. Every Municipal Corporation, Municipality, Notified Area Committee, and Town Panchayat will become a unit of planning with its own approved broad norms for setting up of health facilities. The separate plans for Notified Area Committees, Town Panchayats and Municipalities will be part of the District Health Action Plan drawn up for sub-mission NUHM. The Municipal Corporations will have a separate plan of action as per broad norms for urban areas. The existing structures and mechanisms of governance under NHM will be suitably adapted to fulfill the needs of sub-mission NUHM also.

NUHM Cover

NUHM would cover all State capitals, district headquarters and cities/towns with a population of more than 50000. It would primarily focus on slum dwellers and other marginalized groups like rickshaw pullers, street vendors, railway and bus station coolies, homeless people, street children, construction site workers.

Funding Pattern

The centre-state funding pattern will be 75:25 for all the States except North-Eastern states including Sikkim and other special category states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, for whom the centre-state funding pattern will be 90:10.The Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs) sent by the by the states are apprised and approved by the Ministry.

Related resources

• NUHM Framework for Implementation (1.3MB)
• NUHM guidelines
• Gazette Notification on NUHM (982KB)