Chief Minister's Free Cancer Chemotherapy Scheme (CMFCCS)

What is the Chief Minister's Free Cancer Chemotherapy Scheme?

Chief Minister's Free Cancer Chemotherapy Scheme (CMFCCS) is a state-funded cancer treatment scheme of the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Arunachal Pradesh. CMFCCS was launched on 1 August 2017 at the Tertiary Cancer Centre of the Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (TRIHMS), Naharlagun. The scheme is often referred to locally simply as the "CM free chemotherapy scheme".

CMFCCS gives cancer patients the commonly used chemotherapy medicines free of cost, along with free consultation and free counselling, for the entire period of treatment. The scheme was created to tackle the rising incidence of cancer in Arunachal Pradesh and to stop families from being pushed into debt by the cost of chemotherapy drugs.

The financial engine of the scheme is an agreement with the country's largest cancer institution. Before the launch, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai and the State Cancer Society of Arunachal Pradesh for the procurement of chemotherapy medicines at highly concessional rates. That concessional procurement is what allows the state to stretch a limited budget across a large number of patients.

Key facts about CMFCCS

• Launched on 1 August 2017 at the Tertiary Cancer Centre, TRIHMS, Naharlagun.
• Chemotherapy medicines supplied free, with free consultation and free counselling.
• Drugs procured under an MoU with Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai.
• 5,242 patients had benefited as reported in April 2026.
• Now in its ninth year of operation.

How much does CMFCCS cover per patient?

The scheme ceiling has been described differently at different points in its life, and it is worth being precise about this.

At launch and in the state's own scheme documentation, the ceiling was stated as Rs 10 lakh per person per year for medicines, described as Rs 5 lakh for each six-month block, with an upper limit of around 1,000 patients a year served under the Tata Memorial Centre procurement arrangement.

In April 2026, however, Dr Sam Tsering, state nodal officer of the Cancer Control Programme, described the operating ceiling as Rs 5 lakh per patient per annum, and said that "a mechanism to cover high-end chemotherapy drugs, which are very expensive, needs to be developed", because the Rs 5 lakh ceiling gets exhausted quickly.

Patients should therefore treat Rs 5 lakh per patient per year as the working figure and confirm the current sanction limit with the nodal officer at TRIHMS before planning a costly protocol. Everything within the ceiling is free to the patient; anything beyond it currently has to be met from other sources such as CMAAY, Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY or personal funds.

Who is eligible for CMFCCS?

You can be enrolled if:

• You are an Arunachal Pradesh Scheduled Tribe (APST) cancer patient. The scheme was created for APST patients and they remain the core beneficiary group.
• You are a regular state government employee, including a non-APST state government employee, who has been diagnosed with cancer.
• You are a dependant of a regular state government employee covered by the scheme.
• You have a confirmed cancer diagnosis and a chemotherapy protocol prescribed by the treating oncologist at the state Tertiary Cancer Centre.

You are not eligible if:

• You are a non-APST resident who is not a regular state government employee and not the dependant of one. When the scheme started in 2017 it was available for APST patients only; the extension made later covers state government employees, not the general non-APST public.
• You are a contractual, casual or muster-roll worker rather than a regular state government employee. The criterion published for the non-APST route is regular state government service.
• Your treatment is not chemotherapy. CMFCCS funds chemotherapy medicines; surgery, radiotherapy costs and organ transplant are addressed through other state schemes, notably CMAAY and the Chief Minister Organ Transplant Scheme.
• You want the drugs supplied outside the state Tertiary Cancer Centre system without the nodal officer's sanction.

How to apply for the free cancer chemotherapy scheme

1. Get a confirmed cancer diagnosis, biopsy or histopathology report, and a referral to the Tertiary Cancer Centre, TRIHMS, Naharlagun.
2. Register at the Tertiary Cancer Centre with your Aadhaar card, two passport size photographs, and your APST certificate if you are an APST patient or your government service certificate or ID card if you are a regular state government employee or a dependant of one.
3. Have the treating oncologist record the chemotherapy protocol and the drugs required for each cycle.
4. Submit the case to the scheme nodal officer at the Tertiary Cancer Centre, who sanctions the free supply of drugs under CMFCCS within the scheme ceiling.
5. Collect the sanctioned chemotherapy medicines from the centre for each cycle, and repeat the process for subsequent cycles until treatment ends or the annual ceiling is reached.

There is no online application portal for CMFCCS. The route is entirely through the hospital, which is deliberate, the sanction is tied to a clinician's prescription rather than to a self-declared application.

What documents are required for CMFCCS?

Where is CMFCCS treatment delivered?

CMFCCS is delivered through the Tertiary Cancer Centre under TRIHMS, Naharlagun, which was established in April 2017 — a few months before the scheme itself. The centre offers all three modalities of cancer treatment: chemotherapy, radiation and oncology.

Arunachal Pradesh also maintains two population-based cancer registries, one at TRIHMS and one at Pasighat, the latter serving patients in the eastern part of the state. Under the ICMR population-based cancer registry scheme, every new cancer patient in the state is entered in the state registry, which is how the government tracks the burden the scheme is meant to relieve.

The state's cancer burden is real and concentrated in working-age adults. ICMR registry data for 2011-14 recorded about 2,500 cancer cases in Arunachal Pradesh, with Papum Pare district reporting 802 cases, followed by East Siang with 326 and West Siang with 307. Most cases reported by the centre fall in the 40 to 50 age group, with a noticeable number between 30 and 40. Stomach, liver and oesophageal cancers are common in men, and stomach, breast, cervical and ovarian cancers in women.

Common problems and how to fix them

• Ceiling exhausted mid-treatment. High-end chemotherapy drugs can consume the annual limit quickly. Ask the nodal officer whether the remaining cycles can be routed through CMAAY cover or a fresh sanction in the next financial year.
• Category proof missing. A non-APST patient without a regular state government service certificate cannot be enrolled. Obtain the service certificate from your controlling office before registration.
• Diagnosis not documented. Sanction follows the oncologist's protocol, so an outside prescription without supporting histopathology will usually be sent back for confirmation at the Tertiary Cancer Centre.
• Drug not in the procurement list. Only medicines procured under the Tata Memorial Centre arrangement can be supplied free; a substitute within the same protocol is often available and should be discussed with the oncologist.

Where to get help

• Tertiary Cancer Centre, TRIHMS, Naharlagun: registration, sanction and drug collection under CMFCCS.
• Nodal officer, Cancer Control Programme, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, scheme sanction, ceiling questions and grievances.
• State Cancer Society of Arunachal Pradesh, the body that signed the Tata Memorial Centre MoU and manages drug procurement.

CMFCCS is free to the patient within the sanctioned ceiling. No payment should be made to any individual for enrolment in the scheme or for release of the chemotherapy drugs.

How to check your application status

CMFCCS has no online portal and no application tracking number, so there is no website or SMS system where a patient can look up a status. Status of enrolment and drug sanction is tracked entirely through the hospital file, and checking it means one of the following:

1. Ask at the Tertiary Cancer Centre registration desk, TRIHMS, Naharlagun. Every patient enrolled under CMFCCS has a hospital case file and an oncology OPD record. The registration or oncology desk can confirm whether your registration under the scheme has been recorded against your file.
2. Ask the treating oncologist at your next visit. Sanction for each chemotherapy cycle is tied to the oncologist's prescription, so the oncologist's team is the first place to confirm whether the current cycle's drugs have been approved and issued under CMFCCS rather than billed to you.
3. Contact the scheme nodal officer, Cancer Control Programme. The nodal officer at TRIHMS sanctions each case against the scheme's annual ceiling. If a cycle's drugs have not been released, the nodal officer's office is where the sanction itself, not just the hospital paperwork, can be checked.
4. Check with the State Cancer Society of Arunachal Pradesh if the query is about drug availability rather than your individual sanction. The Society manages procurement under the Tata Memorial Centre arrangement, so a drug delay that affects many patients at once (a particular medicine running low) usually traces back here rather than to your file.

Because sanction is renewed cycle by cycle rather than granted once for the full treatment course, it is worth confirming status before each new cycle begins rather than assuming an earlier approval automatically carries forward, especially once a patient is approaching the Rs 5 lakh annual ceiling.

Common reasons for rejection

CMFCCS drug requests are sanctioned or held back at the Tertiary Cancer Centre, not rejected through a form-based process, so the reasons a request does not go through are almost always tied to eligibility proof, the annual ceiling, or the treatment itself. The common ones:

• APST or government-employee status not established. The scheme restricts free chemotherapy to APST cancer patients and to regular state government employees (and their dependants), including non-APST employees. A patient who is neither APST nor a regular state government employee cannot be sanctioned under CMFCCS. Fix: check which of the two routes applies before registering, and bring the APST certificate or the government service certificate accordingly; there is no third route.
• Employment is contractual, casual, or muster-roll rather than regular. The non-APST route is defined around regular state government service. A contractual or daily-wage government worker does not qualify on that basis alone. Fix: confirm your service category with your controlling office before assuming coverage; if you are not APST and not a regular employee, look at CMAAY or Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY instead.
• Annual ceiling already exhausted. The scheme's nodal officer has flagged that the reported Rs 5 lakh per year ceiling gets used up quickly by high-end chemotherapy drugs, so a mid-year request can be held back simply because the year's sanction limit has been reached, not because the patient is ineligible. Fix: ask the nodal officer whether the remaining cycles can be covered under CMAAY or PM-JAY for the rest of the year, or whether a fresh sanction is possible once the next financial year opens.
• Diagnosis or protocol not confirmed at the Tertiary Cancer Centre. Sanction follows the oncologist's own chemotherapy protocol at TRIHMS. A diagnosis or prescription made outside the centre, without a matching biopsy or histopathology report on file there, is typically sent back for confirmation rather than acted on directly. Fix: get the diagnosis recorded and the protocol prescribed by the Tertiary Cancer Centre's own oncology team.
• Drug requested is outside the procured list. Only medicines procured under the Tata Memorial Centre arrangement are supplied free under CMFCCS. A specific brand or drug outside that procurement list cannot simply be issued free even if it is part of a valid protocol. Fix: ask the oncologist whether an equivalent drug within the procured list can be substituted in the same protocol.
• Treatment is not chemotherapy. CMFCCS funds chemotherapy medicines only. Requests to cover surgery, radiotherapy, or organ transplant costs under this scheme will not be sanctioned. Fix: apply instead under CMAAY or the Chief Minister Organ Transplant Scheme for those costs.