Maharashtra has made specialist teleconsultations on eSanjeevani, the national telemedicine platform, a mandatory part of routine work at its Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, and has reorganised the centres’ week around daily village clinics and home visits. The changes are set out in a Government Resolution (GR) issued by the state Health Department on 29 October 2026.

The order turns Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, the government’s frontline primary care centres, from fixed-location clinics into teams that travel to villages every afternoon, while telemedicine links patients to specialists the centres cannot offer in person.

How the new Ayushman Arogya Mandir schedule works

Under the GR, centres will run outpatient services six days a week, Monday to Saturday. According to reports in Free Press Journal and Naya Maharashtra, the weekday routine is:

• Morning OPD: 8 am to 12.30 pm, Monday to Friday, at the centre.
• Village OPD: 2 pm to 4 pm, held in one village each day at an Anganwadi centre, primary school or gram panchayat office, on a schedule fixed in advance.
• Home visits: 4 pm to 5 pm, to follow up patients who need regular monitoring.
• Saturday: OPD, health meetings and telemedicine consultations.

ASHA and Anganwadi workers will tell residents when and where the village OPD will be held, so that turnout does not depend on word of mouth.

eSanjeevani becomes part of the daily workflow

The most significant digital change is that regular use of eSanjeevani is now compulsory at the centres. Health workers at an Ayushman Arogya Mandir can connect a patient to a specialist doctor online through the platform’s hub-and-spoke model instead of referring them to a distant district hospital for every consultation.

The mandate builds on a national network that has already reached scale. eSanjeevani crossed 50 crore teleconsultations in September 2026, with most of its volume coming through Ayushman Arogya Mandir spokes. Other states are moving in the same direction; Tamil Nadu, for example, is setting up five super-speciality telemedicine hubs to link 200 rural facilities with specialists.

Who the doorstep visits are for

The GR directs health workers to prioritise home visits and follow-ups for groups who find it hardest to reach a clinic:

• Pregnant women, especially high-risk pregnancies, and breastfeeding mothers
• Newborns, infants and young children
• Patients on treatment for tuberculosis and leprosy
• People living with sickle cell disease
• Patients who need palliative care

Teams will also carry out surveys to prevent mosquito-borne diseases. Each centre must offer 14 types of laboratory tests and keep enough essential medicines, injections, intravenous fluids and diagnostic equipment in stock.

Daily, weekly and monthly reviews

Monitoring is built into the order. Medical officers at primary health centres will review their Ayushman Arogya Mandirs every day, taluka health officers every week and district health officers every month. The reviews will track OPD attendance, the number of eSanjeevani consultations, referrals, completed home visits and medicine availability.

A seven-member committee will oversee the expansion and service quality. It will meet every three months and report to the state government.

Why it matters

Counting eSanjeevani consultations as a reviewed performance measure gives district officials a reason to keep telemedicine running, rather than leaving it as an optional add-on. The order also fits Maharashtra’s stated plan, reported in September, to put primary healthcare within 5 km of every resident and build a unified digital health ecosystem. Like Madhya Pradesh’s move to paperless government hospitals, its impact will depend on staffing, connectivity and how consistently the reviews are carried out on the ground.

Patients and health workers can learn more about the national telemedicine service on the eSanjeevani portal.

Key facts

• What: Expanded services at Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, with daily village OPDs, home visits and mandatory eSanjeevani teleconsultations
• Who: Maharashtra Health Department
• When: Government Resolution issued 29 October 2026
• Oversight: Daily, weekly and monthly reviews, plus a seven-member committee meeting quarterly

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