National Health Authority (NHA)

Know what NHA is

• NHA is a government agency. It does not run an incubator or fund startups directly.
• For a company, the useful routes are the ABDM Sandbox and the Digital Health Incentive Scheme. Hackathons come up occasionally and are announced on NHA and ABDM pages.

Choosing the right route

• You build software for clinics, hospitals, labs or pharmacies: start with the ABDM Sandbox, then register for DHIS once you are live.
• You build claims or insurance tooling: watch for NHCX-related challenges, and note that the sandbox request form offers an NHCX integration type.
• You build AI for claims or medical documents: the last hackathon on this was run with the IndiaAI Mission. None is open now.
• You want seed funding: this is not that. Incentives are paid after you integrate and go live.

How the sandbox works

• Create an account on the sandbox site and fill in the request form: entity type, GSTIN, product name, website and whether you are registered or licensed to operate in India.
• Choose the integration type: ABDM, UHI or NHCX.
• Access follows approval by the health tech committee.
• Integrate in milestones: ABHA creation and verification, then linking records to an ABHA address, then exchanging records between facilities.
• Get functional testing done and a web application security assessment from a CERT-In empanelled organisation before going live. You need a fresh assessment after major changes.
• Demonstrate the integration to the committee, then go live.

How DHIS works

• Incentives apply only to eligible, KYC-verified, ABHA-linked transactions above 100 a month.
• Register and claim from your sandbox profile.
• The notice in force at the time of writing covers April to September 2026. Read the scheme page for what applies now.
• Questions go to the DHIS inbox listed on the scheme page.

What reviewers look for

• NHA has not published selection criteria for the sandbox beyond committee approval, the security assessment and a live demo.
• Hackathon winners were chosen per problem statement. Read each problem statement closely and build to its stated standard.

The National Health Authority (NHA) is the Government of India agency that implements Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), the public health insurance scheme, and designs and runs the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). It sits in New Delhi, at the Jeevan Bharati Building in Connaught Place. It is a government body, not an incubator or a grant-maker, and it does not run incubator cohorts. For health-tech companies it offers a sandbox for building on ABDM, an incentive scheme for software that goes live on ABDM, and occasional hackathons.

Who runs it

NHA describes itself as an attached office of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with full functional autonomy. It is governed by a Governing Board chaired by the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare. It is the successor to the National Health Agency, which had worked as a registered society since 23 May 2018. After a Cabinet decision on functional autonomy, that agency was reconstituted as the National Health Authority on 2 January 2019. Sources therefore give 2018 for the predecessor and 2019 for the Authority itself, and this page uses 2019 for the Authority.

NHA's own pages say it is entrusted with the strategy, technology infrastructure and implementation of ABDM, which was launched by the Government of India in September 2021 to build an integrated, citizen-centric national digital health ecosystem.

The ABDM Sandbox

The ABDM Sandbox is the main route for a company. NHA says the digital infrastructure it built, including the ABHA number service, the consent manager and gateway, the ABHA mobile app and a health information user app, is open to health facilities and health-tech players for integration. It is available in all states and union territories.

Integration is staged by milestones. The first is creating and verifying ABHA numbers. The second is linking health records to an ABHA address. The third is exchanging health records between health facilities. The sandbox also lists separate routes for existing providers and payers, existing ABDM partners, healthcare service providers and healthcare facility providers.

The process runs in order. You send a request and get access after a health tech committee approves it. You integrate with the sandbox, run functional tests and have the integration security audited. You then show the result to the health tech committee and get live access before going live. To host the application in production you need a web application security assessment certificate from an organisation empanelled with CERT-In, and you need it again after major changes.

Digital Health Incentive Scheme

The Digital Health Incentive Scheme (DHIS) pays incentives to health facilities and to Digital Solution Companies, meaning vendors of ABDM-enabled software. It is paid on usage, after you have integrated and gone live, so it is not seed funding. Incentives apply only to eligible transactions above 100 a month. The notice in force at the time of writing covers April to September 2026 and counts only KYC-verified, ABHA-linked health records and consent-based record-sharing transactions. The scheme page does not say what applies after September 2026. Rates and ceilings change between notices, so check the scheme page for current terms.

A software company registers on the ABDM Sandbox, integrates and goes live with a health facility's ABDM-enabled software, registers for DHIS from its sandbox profile and then claims the incentive from the same profile.

Hackathons and challenges

NHA and ABDM run hackathons from time to time. Every one found on their pages is closed. The AB PM-JAY Auto-Adjudication Hackathon 2026 was held with the IndiaAI Mission and IISc Bengaluru, with a grand finale and showcase at IISc on 8 and 9 May 2026. Winners were named for each problem statement, including clinical document classification and compliance with standard treatment guidelines, and radiological image-based condition detection. Top teams received cash prizes.

The NHCX Hackathon asked individuals and teams to build open-source microservices aligned with the National Health Claims Exchange (NHCX) protocols, using problem statements from hospitals, insurers and digital health platforms. Its partners were IIT Hyderabad, NRCeS, the General Insurance Council, Google, the India Insurtech Association and NATHealth. Submissions closed on 1 March 2026 and the Innovation Meet was held on 6 and 7 March 2026 at IIT Hyderabad.

An earlier round, the first in the ABDM Hackathon Series, ran from 14 to 17 July 2021 in Pune on Unified Health Interface (UHI) integration. It was open to all innovators, data experts and developers.

Who can apply

The sandbox is meant for companies that build or run health information providers, health repository providers, health information users or health lockers. NHA states no stage, revenue or equity condition, and it does not use the word startup for the sandbox. Access depends on the health tech committee's approval. The request form asks for the type of entity (company, LLP, partnership firm, proprietorship, trust or society, or an individual or sole proprietorship), a GSTIN, the product name, a website, and whether the entity is registered or licensed to operate in India. It also asks which integration you want: ABDM, UHI or NHCX.

DHIS is open to all health facilities, laboratory and radiology diagnostic centres, pharmacies, and companies that provide ABDM-enabled digital solutions.

Scale

NHA reports that the Union Health Minister said in July 2026 that more than 93.95 crore ABHA IDs had been created under ABDM. It also reported that West Bengal became the 36th state or union territory to implement AB PM-JAY in June 2026. These are NHA's own figures and relate to the national schemes, not to startups it has supported.

How to reach NHA

NHA lists abdm@nha.gov.in for ABDM and sandbox queries, and abdm.incentive@nha.gov.in for DHIS. Its pages show two toll-free numbers, 14477 and 1800-11-4477.