By: Nalin Saluja
Last updated : June 10, 2026 12:02 pm
The landmark legislation has laid the foundation for a skilled, regulated and globally competitive Allied and Healthcare Professional workforce, reshaping healthcare education and delivery across India
On May 25, 2026, the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions (NCAHP) Act completed five years. While it may not have attracted the attention of headline-grabbing healthcare reforms, its impact on India’s healthcare ecosystem has been profound.
For decades, Allied and Healthcare Professionals (AHPs)—including laboratory technicians, radiographers, physiotherapists, operation theatre technologists, optometrists and numerous other specialists who form the backbone of healthcare delivery—operated without a unified national regulatory framework. Training standards varied widely across institutions and states. Curricula lacked consistency, and there was no common benchmark to define the competencies expected of graduates entering the workforce. Despite their critical role in patient care, these professionals remained largely outside the focus of healthcare policymaking.
The enactment of the NCAHP Act in 2021 marked the beginning of a fundamental shift.
Establishing National Framework
Perhaps the most significant achievement of the Act over the past five years has been the creation of a structured and standardized regulatory ecosystem for Allied and Healthcare Professions.
Today, India has a national framework that covers ten recognized professional categories and more than 50 allied and healthcare professions. Competency-based curricula aligned with global educational standards have been introduced, the country’s first national registry and licensing mechanisms for AHPs have been established, and mandatory clinical training has become an integral part of professional education.
These foundational elements were absent before 2021.
The urgency of such reforms becomes evident when viewed against India’s healthcare workforce challenges. The country currently has approximately 20 healthcare workers per 10,000 population, significantly below the World Health Organization’s recommended threshold of 44.5 per 10,000. The estimated shortage of Allied and Healthcare Professionals alone stands at around 6.5 million. Existing educational institutions are capable of meeting only a fraction—roughly 4 percent—of the national requirement.
By creating a robust regulatory structure, the NCAHP Act has laid the groundwork for addressing this gap in a systematic manner.
Transforming Healthcare Education
Among the many reforms introduced under the Act, the standardization of healthcare education may prove to be one of the most transformative.
Historically, the quality of training received by AHP students depended heavily on geography and institutional capability. Graduates entered the workforce with varying levels of clinical exposure and practical skills, creating uncertainty for employers and healthcare providers.
The competency-based curriculum framework, jointly developed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and NCAHP and launched in April 2025, aims to change that reality. For the first time, students across the country are being trained according to a common set of nationally defined competencies and educational standards.
The framework embodies the vision of “One Nation, One Curriculum,” ensuring greater consistency, quality, and workforce readiness across the healthcare sector.
Defining Moment for the Sector
For much of its history, India lacked both the institutional capacity to train Allied and Healthcare Professionals at scale and a nationally accepted benchmark to guide that training.
Today, both challenges are being addressed simultaneously.
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisions an additional 25 to 40 million students entering higher education by 2035. Complementing this vision, the Union Budget 2026–27 allocated ₹1,000 crore toward Allied and Healthcare Professional education—the first dedicated budgetary allocation for the sector since Independence.
The investment aims to support the training of one lakh AHP professionals across ten disciplines over the next five years. More importantly, it signals government recognition of the sector’s strategic importance and validates the regulatory foundation established under the NCAHP Act.
The message is clear: Allied and Healthcare Professional education is no longer a peripheral concern but a national priority.
From National Necessity to Global Opportunity
The implications of these reforms extend far beyond India’s domestic healthcare system.
Globally, healthcare systems are confronting severe workforce shortages driven by aging populations, rising healthcare demands, and insufficient training pipelines. By 2030, the world is expected to face a shortfall of millions of healthcare workers.
Several countries are already experiencing significant staffing gaps. Germany faces a shortage of more than 1.5 million nurses. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service continues to grapple with over 100,000 vacancies, many of which are increasingly being filled by overseas professionals. Japan, meanwhile, is expected to require more than 250,000 additional healthcare workers, particularly in elder-care services.
These pressures are expected to intensify over the coming decades.
India is uniquely positioned to become a major supplier of skilled healthcare talent. However, international opportunities have historically been constrained by the absence of nationally standardized credentials and regulatory recognition.
The NCAHP framework changes this equation. By establishing competency-based education aligned with international standards, it enhances the credibility and portability of Indian qualifications. For global employers, the ability to assess Indian-trained professionals against recognized benchmarks is a critical factor in workforce planning and recruitment.
The economic implications are equally significant. India received a record $135 billion in remittances during FY25, reflecting a 14 percent year-on-year increase. Healthcare professionals contribute meaningfully to this inflow. A globally recognized, well-regulated Allied and Healthcare Professional workforce not only addresses domestic healthcare needs but also creates opportunities for skilled employment abroad, generating economic benefits that flow back into the country.
Road Ahead
At Virohan, nearly a decade of experience in Allied and Healthcare education has provided a front-row view of this transformation. Over 13,000 learners and alumni trained through the organization are now contributing to India's healthcare system.
The contrast between the years before and after the NCAHP Act is striking.
The earlier years were characterized by fragmented standards, limited regulatory direction, and the absence of a unified framework. The years since the Act's implementation have brought greater clarity, consistency, and purpose to the sector.
Yet the next phase of growth will depend on more than regulation alone.
Expanding faculty capacity, strengthening industry partnerships to absorb skilled graduates, and improving access to student financing will be critical to sustaining momentum. These challenges are interconnected and must be addressed together if the promise of the NCAHP Act is to be fully realized.
Five years on, the Act has provided the foundation that the sector long lacked. The task now is to build an ecosystem capable of matching the ambition of that foundation and ensuring that India's Allied and Healthcare Professionals can meet both national healthcare needs and global workforce demands.
About Author: Nalin Saluja is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Virohan, where he leads the company’s product and technology strategy with a focus on scale and meaningful learner outcomes. With over 15 years of experience across global technology and startup environments, he brings an engineer’s entrepreneurial approach to improving healthcare education in India.