India's Immunisation Programme

The Universal Immunisation Programme: what it covers, and how it delivers

India's Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), run by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare through the National Health Mission, provides free vaccination against twelve life-threatening diseases, including diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, hepatitis B and measles-rubella, to every eligible child and pregnant woman in the country. Delivery deliberately does not depend on a family reaching a hospital: vaccines are provided free at fixed sites such as Primary Health Centres and Community Health Centres, at sub-centres, and through outreach sessions held at Anganwadi centres and other local sites within villages, a layered delivery structure built specifically to reach populations that would otherwise never make it to a formal health facility.

Mission Indradhanush: not a new vaccine, a targeted search for missed children

Mission Indradhanush, launched in 2014, is not a separate immunisation scheme with its own vaccines. Its entire purpose is to find and vaccinate children and pregnant women the regular UIP has missed or only partially covered, using the exact same vaccines already in the National Immunization Schedule, with particular focus on hard-to-reach populations and areas. Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI), launched in 2017 as a more targeted follow-up, sharpened this same mission specifically toward children under two years old and pregnant women left out of routine immunisation, with an added focus on urban areas and other low-coverage regions where gaps tend to concentrate.

The result of this sustained, iterative "find the gaps" approach is a genuinely large jump in coverage: India's full immunisation rate rose from 62% in 2015 to 98.4% by January 2026, entirely without adding a single new antigen to the standard schedule, purely by closing the gap between how many children the programme was designed to reach and how many it was actually reaching on the ground.

Quick revision points

• Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP): free vaccination against 12 diseases, delivered through PHCs, CHCs, sub-centres and Anganwadi-based outreach sessions, specifically to reach populations without easy access to a hospital.
• Mission Indradhanush (2014): adds no new vaccine; its job is finding and vaccinating children/pregnant women the regular UIP missed, using the existing National Immunization Schedule.
• Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) (2017): a sharper follow-up focused on children under two and pregnant women in low-coverage and urban areas specifically.
• Result: full immunisation coverage rose from 62% (2015) to 98.4% (January 2026), driven by closing coverage gaps rather than by expanding the vaccine list itself.