The Power Players of Indian Healthcare: Who Regulates, Accredits and Funds Hospitals

Running a hospital in India means answering to a long list of authorities: the state health department for the licence, the pollution control board for biomedical waste, the fire service, the radiation regulator and, if you choose them, accreditation bodies and government insurance schemes. This guide maps who does what, so administrators, quality managers and anyone setting up a hospital know which body handles which part of the job. Each section links to the official site and to our detailed guides.

How healthcare regulation is split in India

Under the Constitution, “public health and sanitation; hospitals and dispensaries” is a state subject. That is why hospital registration, inspections and most operating licences come from state or district authorities, and why the rules differ from state to state.

Parliament still legislates on subjects such as drugs and the medical profession, which are on the Concurrent List, and the central government runs national schemes and programmes. Accreditation sits outside both: it is voluntary, run by independent boards and assessed against published standards.

In practice, a hospital deals with three kinds of body:

• State and district authorities for registration and operating licences.
• Central regulators and agencies for drugs, devices, medical education, radiation safety and national schemes.
• Accreditation and quality bodies for voluntary standards such as NABH.

Government ministries and regulators

• Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW): sets national health policy and runs central health schemes and programmes. Its technical wing, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), advises on medical and public health matters.
• National Medical Commission (NMC): regulates medical education and the professional conduct of doctors. It replaced the Medical Council of India in September 2020. Doctors you employ need a valid registration with a state medical council or the NMC.
• Indian Nursing Council (INC): the statutory body for nursing education standards, under the Indian Nursing Council Act, 1947. Nurses register with their state nursing council.
• Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO): the national regulator for drugs, medical devices and clinical trials, headed by the Drugs Controller General of India. State drug controllers license pharmacies, and blood centres need approval from both.
• National Health Authority (NHA): runs Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY, the government health insurance scheme, and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Hospitals join PM-JAY through their State Health Agency; see our guide to PM-JAY empanelment.
• Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB): licenses X-ray, CT, cath lab, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy equipment and sets radiation safety rules. See our AERB guidelines for hospitals.
• State pollution control boards: grant the authorisation hospitals need under the Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016. See our biomedical waste management guide.
• Ministry of Ayush: oversees Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy. It matters if you offer Ayush services, and NABH has separate standards for Ayush hospitals.
• Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR): the apex body for biomedical research, which publishes the national ethical guidelines for research involving people. It matters if your hospital runs clinical research or an ethics committee.

Accreditation and quality bodies

Accreditation is voluntary, but it is the clearest way for a hospital to show that it meets a recognised standard.

• Quality Council of India (QCI): the national quality body set up by the Government of India with industry. Its constituent boards include NABH, NABL and NABCB.
• NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers): accredits hospitals, small healthcare organisations, blood banks, and eye care, dental, medical imaging and Ayush providers, among others. It also certifies entry-level hospitals, nursing excellence, emergency departments, stroke centres and medical laboratories, and runs empanelment for CGHS and ECHS. The current hospital standards are the 6th edition, effective 1 January 2025, with 639 objective elements. Start with our guides to the NABH accreditation process, the 6th edition standards and entry-level certification.
• NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories): accredits laboratories, including medical laboratories against ISO 15189. See our NABL audit checklist.
• NABCB (National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies): accredits the certification bodies that issue ISO 9001 and similar management system certificates.
• Joint Commission International (JCI): an international accreditation that some Indian hospitals hold alongside or instead of NABH. See our guide to JCI standards.
• NQAS, Kayakalp and LaQshya: the government’s quality programmes for public health facilities, run with the National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC). NQAS certifies facilities against national quality standards, Kayakalp rewards cleanliness, hygiene and infection control, and LaQshya covers labour rooms and maternity operation theatres. See our guides to the NQAS checklist and Kayakalp guidelines.
• CAHO (Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations): a common platform for NABH- and NABL-accredited organisations that runs training workshops and conferences.

Licences and laws every hospital deals with

Most of these are granted by state or district authorities, so check your state’s current rules and forms. Our list of hospital licences required in India covers the documents and steps.

India has no health-specific privacy law like the US HIPAA, so the data protection law applies to patient records as it does to other personal data. For how long to keep records, see our guide to health data retention policies in India.

Government health schemes hospitals take part in

• Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY: eligible families get health cover of up to ₹5 lakh a year for secondary and tertiary hospital care. Since 29 October 2024 it also covers all citizens aged 70 and above, whatever their income, through the Ayushman Vay Vandana card. PM-JAY took over the older Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) when it launched in 2018.
• Ayushman Arogya Mandirs: primary care centres, known as Health and Wellness Centres until 2023, that form the other pillar of Ayushman Bharat.
• Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM): launched in September 2021 to connect health records. Patients get an ABHA health account, and hospitals and professionals can register on the Health Facility Registry and the Healthcare Professionals Registry.
• CGHS and ECHS: health schemes for central government employees and pensioners (CGHS) and for ex-servicemen (ECHS). Private hospitals join through empanelment, which NABH administers; see our guide to the NABH portal for CGHS and ECHS.
• National Health Mission (NHM): funds public health facilities and programmes through its rural and urban sub-missions.
• Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY): sets up new AIIMS-type institutions and upgrades government medical colleges.
• Universal Immunization Programme (UIP): provides free vaccines for children and pregnant women.

Industry and professional associations

• Indian Medical Association (IMA): the national voluntary association of doctors practising modern medicine.
• Association of Healthcare Providers (India) (AHPI): represents hospitals and other healthcare providers.
• NATHEALTH – Healthcare Federation of India: an industry federation that works with the government on healthcare policy.
• Hospital Infection Society – India (HISI): a national body for infection prevention and control, which publishes the Journal of Patient Safety and Infection Control. See our best practices for infection control.
• Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine (ISCCM): the professional society for intensive care.

How hospitals show they are improving

Quality standards ask hospitals to measure results as well as write policies. NABH’s 6th edition, for example, added annexures on patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), patient-reported experience measures (PREMs), medication errors, risk management and clinical audit. The measures most hospitals track fall into three groups:

• Patient experience: satisfaction survey scores, Net Promoter Score, complaints and how quickly they are resolved, and OPD waiting times.
• Clinical quality and safety: healthcare-associated infection rates, medication errors, patient falls, readmissions and mortality.
• Efficiency: bed occupancy, average length of stay and discharge turnaround time.

Our guide to quality indicators for NABH covers the indicators in detail. For the patient experience measures, LazyMonkey’s patient feedback system for hospitals collects feedback through QR codes and discharge surveys and sends real-time alerts on critical responses.

Keeping up with changes

These rules change often. Recent changes include the NMC replacing the Medical Council of India (2020), PM-JAY extending cover to everyone aged 70 and above (2024), NABH’s 6th edition hospital standards (2025) and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023, with rules notified in 2025). Before acting on any requirement, check the regulator’s official site or your state’s latest notification.

Frequently Asked Questions