Ayushman Arogya Mandirs to hold weekly yoga sessions, Health Secretary directs

Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava has directed that regular yoga and wellness sessions be held at Ayushman Arogya Mandirs on a fixed day every week, according to reports of her review visit to three of these primary health centres in New Delhi, published on Thursday, 5 November 2026. During the visit she reviewed how the centres deliver basic health care, praised their screening for non-communicable diseases and the availability of 12 essential laboratory tests, and asked for more children to be given digital health IDs, the Union Health Ministry said.

Ayushman Arogya Mandirs are the first point of contact with the public health system for many families: the neighbourhood clinic where blood pressure is checked, basic tests are done and common illnesses are treated. A fixed weekly yoga day turns that idea into a routine that residents can plan around, in the same place where they already go for check-ups.

The directive links yoga with the centres' most important preventive work. Diabetes, high blood pressure and other lifestyle diseases are the main focus of NCD screening, and regular physical activity is part of the standard public health advice for them. Holding yoga sessions where people are screened gives those found at risk a free, supervised place to start. Yoga's place here is as a wellness and lifestyle practice; the directive does not claim it replaces medical treatment, and patients diagnosed with a disease still need the care their doctor prescribes.

For the Ayush sector, the step is a sign of traditional practice being folded into ordinary government health care rather than run as a separate system. Yoga already has a strong public profile through the International Day of Yoga; a weekly session at a primary health centre takes it into everyday, year-round use.

Peepals timeline: On 25 November 2025, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta inaugurated 70 Ayushman Arogya Mandirs in the capital, a major expansion of the city's network of these centres. On Thursday, 5 November 2026, reports described the Union Health Secretary's review of three such centres in New Delhi, where she directed weekly yoga and wellness sessions, praised NCD screening and lab services, and asked for Baal ABHA IDs and NQAS certification.

Short-term: Centres will need to fix a weekday for yoga sessions and arrange instructors or trained staff, and residents can expect notices of the schedule at their nearest AAM.

Long-term: If attendance holds, the sessions could help people found at risk during NCD screening build regular activity into their week, and give health officials a measure of how much interest there is in preventive wellness at the community level.

Who is affected: people who use Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, especially those with or at risk of diabetes and high blood pressure; centre staff; yoga instructors; and parents, through the push for Baal ABHA IDs for children.

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