Mukhyamantri Haat-Bazar Clinic Yojana

What is Mukhyamantri Haat-Bazar Clinic Yojana?

Mukhyamantri Haat-Bazar Clinic Yojana is the Chhattisgarh Health and Family Welfare Department scheme that takes a doctor to the weekly village market instead of waiting for the villager to reach a hospital. A haat bazar is the rural weekly market. The one day the whole surrounding area already comes together to buy and sell. The scheme parks a mobile medical unit at that market, sets up a clinic for the day, and treats whoever turns up, free.

The scheme was launched on 2 October 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, and was aimed squarely at the state's hardest geography: the scheduled and tribal blocks and the Left Wing Extremism affected districts of Bastar division and beyond, where the nearest health facility can be a day's travel away and where the market day is the one reliable fixed point in the week. The World Health Organization has published material on strengthening the Haat Bazaar Clinic Yojana, and the state has produced a documentary film on the scheme.

Why it is designed this way

• It solves the distance problem without building new buildings. The clinic travels.
• It uses an existing gathering, so nobody has to make a special trip.
• It is walk-in and free, removing both the paperwork barrier and the cost barrier.
• It catches undiagnosed chronic disease; anaemia, hypertension, diabetes, tuberculosis: in a population that would otherwise present only in an emergency.

What services does the haat bazar clinic provide?

Each mobile medical unit is stocked as a small outpatient department on wheels. Reported services include:

• Doctor's consultation, free, with no appointment.
• Around 10 types of laboratory tests, free of cost, covering screening for blood pressure, diabetes, anaemia, malaria and typhoid among others.
• Around 60 types of medicine, dispensed free by the pharmacist on the team.
• Portable X-ray facilities on units so equipped.
• A private examination room for women patients, which is one of the scheme's more consciously designed features and a major reason women attend.
• Referral of serious cases to a Primary Health Centre, Community Health Centre or district hospital, with a referral slip.
• Teleconsultation support, allowing the doctor at the market to consult a specialist physician before deciding treatment.

The state allocated Rs 13 crore for the scheme in the 2021-22 budget, and it is run alongside the National Health Mission machinery in the districts.

Who is eligible for the Haat-Bazar Clinic Yojana?

You can be treated if:

• You are present at a notified haat bazar on the day the mobile medical unit is there. That is the entire test.
• You live in a village, tola or para served by that market. In practice the units concentrate on scheduled and tribal areas and the state's remote and Naxal-affected blocks.
• You are of any age, any sex, any caste and any income level, the scheme applies no such filter.

Who cannot apply or is not eligible:

• Nobody is excluded by category, but the scheme cannot substitute for inpatient care. A patient needing admission, surgery, dialysis or intensive care is not treated at the mobile unit and must be referred to a hospital.
• Emergencies should go straight to the nearest health facility or be moved by the 108 ambulance, not wait for the market day.
• Residents of towns and cities are outside this scheme's design; the urban equivalent is Mukhyamantri Shahari Slum Swasthya Yojana.
• The clinic does not issue medico-legal certificates, disability certificates or fitness certificates. Those come from a designated government hospital.

There is no card, no ration card requirement, no Aadhaar requirement and no income certificate.

How to apply for treatment under the Haat-Bazar Clinic Yojana

Mukhyamantri Haat-Bazar Clinic Yojana has no application form and no online registration. What follows is how a patient actually uses it.

1. Find out your haat bazar clinic date. Ask your Mitanin, the Rural Health Officer, the ANM at the sub-centre, or the nearest Primary Health Centre. Schedules are fixed district-wise around the local weekly market calendar, and Mitanins are formally responsible for telling households when the unit is coming.
2. Go to the market ground on that day. Reach reasonably early — the units run a fixed number of hours and queues build up.
3. Give your name at the registration point on the vehicle. The team keeps an outpatient register; there is no fee.
4. See the doctor. Carry any old prescriptions, X-rays or reports so the doctor can see your treatment history, which matters particularly for TB, hypertension and diabetes follow-up.
5. Get your tests done at the unit's lab point if the doctor orders them, and wait for the result the same day where the test allows it.
6. Collect your medicines free from the pharmacist against the prescription.
7. If you are referred, keep the referral slip and go to the named facility. Carry your Ayushman Bharat or state health card so onward hospital treatment is cashless.

How large is the scheme?

State reporting over the first four years of operation gives the following scale:

These are the government's own programme figures reported in state communication. Numbers grow every year, so treat them as a snapshot of scale rather than a current count.

Why the scheme matters in Bastar and the tribal blocks

In Chhattisgarh's southern and northern tribal districts, the practical obstacles to health care are not primarily about cost: public treatment is already free, but about distance, transport and time. A household that loses a day's wage and pays for transport to reach a Community Health Centre will often simply not go until the illness becomes severe. Placing a clinic at the market removes all three costs at once, because the family is already at the market.

The second effect is screening. A large share of the conditions detected at these clinics are chronic and silent, anaemia in women, undiagnosed hypertension and diabetes, early tuberculosis. These are conditions that a walk-in market clinic can pick up years before they would otherwise present. The presence of a private room for women, staffed so that a woman can be examined without being seen by the market crowd, is the single design feature most often credited with getting women to attend.

Common problems and how to sort them out

• The unit did not come this week. Vehicle breakdowns, monsoon road closures and staff shortages do happen. Report a repeated absence to the Block Medical Officer or the Chief Medical and Health Officer of the district.
• Medicine out of stock. Ask for the prescription in writing and collect the medicine at the nearest Primary Health Centre, where the same essential drug list applies.
• Test not available at the unit. The unit carries a fixed test panel. A test outside it must be done at the Community Health Centre or district hospital, still free.
• Referral not honoured at the hospital. Carry the referral slip and escalate to the hospital superintendent; a Haat-Bazar Clinic referral is a government referral.
• No Mitanin in your village. Contact the sub-centre ANM or the Block Programme Manager under the National Health Mission.

Where to get help and raise a grievance

• Health helpline 104; Chhattisgarh's health advice and grievance line.
• Ambulance 108 for emergencies; do not wait for the clinic day.
• Mitanin in your village, then the ANM at the sub-centre.
• Block Medical Officer, then the Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) at the district level.
• Health and Family Welfare Department, Chhattisgarh, cghealth.nic.in.

Mukhyamantri Haat-Bazar Clinic Yojana is free at every step. No fee may be charged for consultation, for a test, or for medicine, and no one may charge to "put your name down" for the clinic, there is no list.