RTI RESPONSE BY NATIONAL HEALTH AUTHORITY ON ABHA NUMBER (HEALTH ID)

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India on 15 August, 2022 announced the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) aimed to digitise the healthcare system across India and to build the digital infrastructure of India's healthcare. NDHM, now renamed as Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) was launched and brought into force across India on 27 September, 2022.

The Health Data Management Policy (HDMP) under the ABDM lays down the framework for generation of health ID, now renamed as Ayushman Bharat Health Account Number (ABHA Number), health professional ID, facility ID, rights of data principals, obligations of data fiduciaries, obligations of health information users, grievance redressal mechanism and consent mechanism. The HDMP can be accessed here.

The Ministry on 04 February, 2022 announced that more than 15 crore ABHA numbers were generated. The press released may be accessed here.

Under these circumstances, SFLC.in filed RTI applications under the Right to Information, Act 2005 on 14 February, 2022 and 21 February, 2022 seeking queries on the total number of ABHA numbers, health professional IDs, facility IDs generated along with the total number of health information users, data fiduciaries, complaints received and resolved by the Grievance Redressal Officer under National Digital Health Mission (GRO-NDHM). The detailed queries raised by us can be found below.

We received RTI responses dated 09 March, 2022 and 21 March, 2022 . The salient points from the responses are as follows:

1. 19,34,03,861 ABHA numbers have been generated.

2. 66.18% of ABHA numbers were generated by COWIN App alone.

3. 94% of ABHA numbers were generarated through Aadhaar.

4. 6% of ABHA numbers were generatede through mobile number.

5. 19,389 health professional IDs have been generated.

6. 18,978 facility IDs have been generated

7. Under ABDM, there are 21 Health ID providers including private entities like PayTM, Reliance Digital Health, SRL Labs. The entire list of Health ID providers is available in the RTI responses.

The copy of RTI responses received by us from the National Health Authority is provided below.