The Union ministry of health and family welfare has issued approval to 297 Day Care Cancer Centres (DCCCs) across the country so far during 2025-26, in line with the announcement of Union Budget 2025-26 of setting up DCCCs in all district hospitals in three years.
The Ministry has said that the Department of Health and Family Welfare has approved 297 DCCCs across 23 States and 7 Union Territories (UTs), and 102 centres across 13 States and three UTs are functional among this.
As per the announcement of Union Budget 2025-26, the government initiated efforts to set up DCCCs in all district hospitals in the next 3 years, out of which 200 centres were to be set up in Financial Year 2025-26.
"297 DCCCs have been approved by The Department of Health & Family Welfare, out of which 102 DCCCs are functional as per details provided by states/UTs," said Prataprao Jadhav, Union Minister of State in the ministry of health in Rajya Sabha, earlier this month.
The Budget norms for the new DCCCs is Rs. 241.1 lakhs (non-recurring cost of Rs 91.3 lakhs and recurring cost of Rs 149.8 lakhs) per unit. The centres are designed to operate as 4-6 beds, within existing district hospital premises. Respective state governments may increase the number of beds as per their requirement.
Funds have been released to the States and UTs, under National Programme for Non-Communicable Diseases (NP-NCD) (excluding Planning & Monitoring and Evaluation) from FY 2025-26, till January 23, 2026, for establishment of these centres, he added.
According to data available, some of the States which received highest number of DCCC approvals so far include Uttar Pradesh (67 centres), Telangana (27), Maharashtra (26), Bihar (21), Himachal Pradesh (18), Jharkhand and Karnataka (16 each), and Andhra Pradesh (14).
The Ministry has earlier said that the DCCCs will be established in District hospitals as per availability of space and logistics; however, based on the feasibility and as per State proposals, DCCCs can be established in other government health facilities also.
Fund requirement is fulfilled by the State Resource Envelope (RE) of National Health Mission (NHM) and proportion of states/UTs will be as per norms of NHM.
The ministry of health & family welfare conducted a national gap analysis using Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) cancer registry data and planned for establishment of Day Care Cancer Centres (DCCCs) in consultation with States, as per announcement in the Union Budget 2025-26.
High-burden districts were prioritized, and proposals were submitted by the States/UTs and finalized by the National Programme Coordination Committee (NPCC) to optimize resources and avoid duplication, it added. |