India observes the 11th Ayurveda Day on 23 September 2026 under the theme “Ayurveda for a Healthier Tomorrow”. The occasion is a useful moment to take stock of how a classical knowledge system is being built into public clinics, insurance, global coding standards and drug regulation — and where the evidence gaps still lie.

• Origin: first observed in 2016 on Dhanvantari Jayanti (Dhanteras), the festival associated with Dhanvantari, regarded as the divine propagator of Ayurveda.
• Problem: Dhanteras follows the lunar calendar and shifts between mid-October and mid-November, complicating national and international planning.
• Change: a Gazette Notification of 23 March 2025 fixed 23 September — near the autumnal equinox, when day and night are nearly equal — as Ayurveda Day every year.
• Symbolism: the Ministry linked the equinox to Ayurveda’s idea of balance; a fixed, non-religious date also suits global observance. 2025 was the first year on the new date.

• Co-location: NHM supports Ayush services alongside allopathic care in 13,249 public facilities, so patients can access both systems under one roof.
• Workforce: salaries of 25,322 Ayush doctors and 5,666 Ayush paramedics are funded; a BAMS (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) graduate can serve as a Community Health Officer.
• Tertiary integration: Departments of Integrative Medicine, each with a Panchakarma unit, at VMMC & Safdarjung Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College; Ayush services also run at the new AIIMS.

Figure 2 — National Ayush Mission: key highlights, FY 2022-23 to 2024-25

Figures are outputs (buildings, upgrades), not health outcomes. Image courtesy PIB / Ministry of Ayush, 22 September 2026; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• eSanjeevani: the free national telemedicine platform, reported to have served over 50 crore patients, now includes Ayush OPD consultations with Ayurveda specialists.
• Insurance mandate: in 2024, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) required all insurers to offer products or add-ons covering all systems of medicine, including Ayurveda.
• Universal empanelment: on 10 February 2026, AIIA signed a Common Empanelment MoU with the General Insurance Council, empanelling it with all 32 general insurers — the first Ayush institution to do so for cashless treatment.

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is the World Health Organization’s global diagnostic coding system. Its 11th revision added a Traditional Medicine Module 2 (TM2) covering Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani.

• Timeline: TM2 was launched for country testing in New Delhi on 10 January 2024 and formally released in the ICD-11 update of 2025.
• Why it matters: clinicians can record Ayush diagnoses with standard codes (alongside biomedical codes — “dual coding”), enabling comparable data, insurance processing and research.
• TM1 vs TM2: the earlier Module 1 largely drew on traditional medicine originating in ancient China; TM2 is the first to codify South Asian systems.

• Capacity (13 March 2026): 593 Ayurveda colleges, 45,245 undergraduate and 5,673 postgraduate seats; 17 new Ayush colleges approved under NAM, 12 of them for Ayurveda.
• AYURGYAN (2021-22): R&D support scheme; Ayurveda accounts for ₹9.38 crore across 17 of the 34 funded projects (₹17.79 crore in all).
• AYUR SWASTHYA Yojana (2021–26): supported 25 projects (22 involving Ayurveda) and created 28 Centres of Excellence, 22 of them Ayurveda-centric.
• CCRAS: works through 30 institutes; its SPARK studentship reached 289 colleges (2022-23 to 2024-25). In March 2026 it tied up with AICTE’s Anuvadini AI to translate research into 13 Indian languages.

• Legal base: Ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani drugs are regulated under the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 (Chapter IVA) and the Drugs Rules, 1945, which prescribe Good Manufacturing Practices and pharmacopoeial standards.
• Enforcement: an Ayush vertical within the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO); the e-Aushadhi portal tracks manufacturing licence applications online.
• Ayurveda Aahara: the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), with the Ministry, notified a framework and a product list of classical dietary items for licensing traditional food makers.

• Agreements: 27 country-to-country MoUs, 16 Academic Chair MoUs, 57 institute-level MoUs; in 2025-26, new country MoUs with Angola, Kazakhstan and Tanzania.
• Footprint: 46 Ayush Information Cells across 43 countries; 104 scholarships for foreign nationals; M-3/M-4 visas for Ayush patients and caregivers.
• WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre (GCTM), Jamnagar: WHO’s first global outposted centre for traditional medicine; the Budget 2026-27 provides for its upgradation.
• Second WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine: Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, December 2025, adopting the Delhi Declaration (the first summit was held in Gandhinagar in 2023).
• BRICS: the 16th BRICS Health Ministers’ Meeting (Chandigarh) set up an Expert Working Group on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine.

Figure 3 — Indian Ayush market valuation (US$ billion)

Growth was gradual until 2023 before a sharp jump in 2024; the US$200 billion figure for 2030 is a projected target, not an achieved value. Image courtesy PIB (data: India Brand Equity Foundation), 22 September 2026; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• Pluralistic access: co-location and telemedicine widen choice in primary care, especially where allopathic doctors are scarce and Ayush practitioners are already present.
• Preventive orientation: diet, lifestyle and Yoga-based approaches align with the growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.
• Standardisation: ICD-11 coding, insurance empanelment and pharmacopoeial standards move the sector from anecdote towards recordable, auditable practice.

• Evidence base: large, well-designed randomised trials remain limited for many formulations; research output under dedicated schemes (tens of publications) is modest against the sector’s ambitions.
• Drug safety: international studies have reported heavy-metal content in some marketed products, and pharmacovigilance reporting remains thin; testing capacity is uneven across States.
• Misleading claims: the Supreme Court’s scrutiny of misleading health advertisements (IMA v. Union of India, 2024) showed gaps in enforcing the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954.
• Integration boundaries: “mixopathy” debates — for instance over the 2020 notification allowing Ayurveda postgraduates to perform listed surgeries — show unresolved questions of scope and patient safety.
• Outputs vs outcomes: counts of buildings and seats are reported; health outcomes, cost-effectiveness and patient satisfaction data are rarely published.
• Raw-material sustainability: a large share of medicinal plants is still wild-collected, raising concerns of over-harvesting and adulteration in supply chains.

• Evidence first: fund multi-centre clinical trials on priority conditions, publish negative results, and link ICD-11 TM2 data to outcome tracking.
• Safety net: expand State Drug Testing Laboratories, mandate batch-level heavy-metal testing for mineral-based formulations and strengthen pharmacovigilance reporting.
• Clear protocols: define referral and cross-practice rules for integrative departments so each system works within its validated scope.
• Supply chain: scale cultivation of medicinal plants with farmer incentives and traceability to reduce wild harvesting.

Cities under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 are clearing decades-old garbage mounds and converting the land into parks, processing plants and urban forests. Four city cases — Gorakhpur, Delhi, Nagpur and Raichur — show both the method and its limits.

Biomining is the scientific excavation and processing of old waste. The heap is dug out, stabilised with microbial cultures and drying, then screened through rotating drum sieves (trommels) that separate it into usable fractions. Bioremediation refers to using microbes to break down the organic matter.

• Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) — eco-park: a 40-acre site used for seven years was biomined at about 400 tonnes a day and turned into the Kachre Se Kanchan Rapti Eco Park, with a restaurant run by the women’s self-help group Shakti Ki Rasoi.
• Bhalswa (Delhi) — accelerated remediation: about 70 acres; biomining since July 2022; the Swachhata Hi Seva campaign was launched from here in September 2025. By 31 July 2026, 99.07 lakh MT was remediated and over half the site reclaimed.
• Bhandewadi (Nagpur, Maharashtra) — processing hub: over 10 lakh MT treated; the yard is now an Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Processing Facility with composting, waste-derived fuel, CCTV monitoring and leachate treatment.
• Yakalaspura (Raichur, Karnataka) — urban forest: about 62,252 MT processed on a 35-acre site, reclaiming nearly 22 acres; a Miyawaki forest of about 5–7 acres began on World Environment Day, 5 June 2026.

• Land value: reclaimed urban land is scarce and valuable; reuse as parks, forests or processing hubs gives visible public returns.
• Circular economy: RDF substitutes fossil fuel in cement kilns, and recyclables re-enter the value chain rather than staying buried.
• Health and climate co-benefits: removing heaps cuts fire risk, methane release and leachate flows into groundwater.
• Livelihoods: self-help groups and local workers gain employment in parks and processing units.

• Fresh-waste inflow: if daily waste continues to arrive unsegregated, new mounds form as old ones are cleared — the release itself notes the need to process fresh waste at Bhalswa.
• Fraction quality: RDF from old waste is often wet or contaminated, limiting cement-kiln uptake; fine soil may carry heavy metals, so its use for land filling needs testing.
• Measuring “remediated”: tonnage cleared is reported, but independent verification of final disposal of each fraction is less visible.
• ULB capacity: biomining is costly and contract-driven; smaller municipalities with weak finances depend heavily on central and State grants.
• Informal workers: waste pickers who depended on dumpsites risk losing livelihoods unless integrated into formal recovery chains.

• Stop the inflow: enforce source segregation and decentralised wet-waste processing under the SWM Rules, 2026, so cleared sites stay clear.
• Assured offtake: binding RDF supply arrangements with cement plants and quality standards for bio-soil and inerts.
• Transparency: publish site-wise, third-party-verified data on waste excavated, fractions disposed and land reused.
• Inclusion: register waste pickers and absorb them into material recovery facilities with social security.