Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana (Mission ANMOL), Delhi

What is Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana?

Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana is the Government of NCT of Delhi's universal newborn screening programme, run by the Department of Health and Family Welfare and referred to officially as Mission ANMOL: Advanced Newborn Monitoring for Optimal Lifecare. Under the programme, 56 types of medical tests are performed on a newborn baby from a single drop of blood, completely free of cost.

Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana was announced on 24 March 2026 during the Delhi Budget session for 2026-27, backed by an allocation of Rs 25 crore, within a health sector budget of about Rs 13,034 crore. The programme scales Delhi's existing newborn screening effort from roughly 1.5 lakh babies a year to about 2.5 lakh a year, which is close to covering every birth in the National Capital Territory. The Delhi government has stated that the tests will be available free of cost in both government and private hospitals.

The medical logic behind Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana is that a small set of serious conditions present at birth are invisible in the first weeks of life but cause permanent damage if they are not caught. Congenital hypothyroidism is the classic example: a baby who looks perfectly healthy at discharge can suffer irreversible intellectual disability within months, yet the condition is treatable with an inexpensive daily tablet if it is detected in the first weeks. G6PD deficiency, an inherited enzyme disorder, is another; knowing about it lets a family avoid the specific drugs and foods that trigger a dangerous haemolytic crisis. Screening at birth converts these from lifelong disabilities into managed conditions.

What Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana covers

• 56 diagnostic tests from a single drop of blood taken by heel prick.
• Metabolic disorders, where the body cannot process a normal component of food.
• Endocrine disorders, including congenital hypothyroidism.
• Functional and visible congenital conditions identified at the newborn stage.
• No fee to the family in either a government or a private facility.

Who is covered by Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana?

Covered:

• Every newborn baby delivered in Delhi, in a government hospital, a Delhi government health facility or a private hospital, within the programme's stated scope of universal newborn screening.
• Babies of parents in any income group. Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana is a universal public health programme, not a targeted welfare benefit, so no income certificate, BPL card or caste certificate is involved.

Not eligible / outside the scheme:

• Adults and older children cannot apply. Newborn screening has a narrow biological window in the first days of life, and the tests are not offered as a general diagnostic package for anyone else in the family.
• Babies delivered outside Delhi are covered by whatever screening programme operates in the state of birth, not by Mission ANMOL.
• Individuals cannot apply for a cash benefit under this scheme, because there is no cash component at all. Families sometimes look for a bank transfer under a scheme with "Mukhyamantri" in the name and find nothing; the benefit here is the free test panel and the follow-up care.

Which documents do parents need?

The practical point is that there is no document collection exercise for parents. Everything the programme needs is already in the delivery file. What parents must do is give a working mobile number and make sure it is recorded correctly, because a callback for a confirmatory test is the step that makes screening worth anything.

How to apply for Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana screening

There is no application form and no portal registration. Follow these steps at the hospital:

1. Deliver at a health facility in Delhi. A Delhi government hospital, a maternity home, or a private hospital covered by the programme. Institutional delivery is what puts the baby inside the screening system.
2. Ask the paediatric or nursing staff to confirm that the newborn screening sample has been taken before discharge. The sample is a heel prick taken in the first days of life; it takes seconds and does not need the baby to be fasting.
3. Give a correct, working mobile number and confirm it is written into the record. Ask specifically how you will be contacted if a result is abnormal.
4. Collect or note the screening reference given by the facility, and keep it with the Mother and Child Protection card.
5. Attend the callback appointment if the hospital contacts you for a confirmatory test. A screening result is a flag, not a diagnosis, and the confirmatory test decides whether treatment is needed.
6. Start treatment immediately if a condition is confirmed. For conditions like congenital hypothyroidism, the value of the entire programme lies in starting treatment within weeks rather than months.

What happens after the sample is taken?

The blood spot goes to a laboratory where the 56-test panel is run. Most babies screen normal and the family hears nothing further, which is the intended outcome. Where a marker falls outside the reference range, the facility initiates a recall for a confirmatory test, because screening panels are deliberately tuned to catch every possible case and therefore produce some false positives. A confirmed diagnosis leads to referral for specialist treatment.

Parents should understand this sequence before they get a phone call, because the call itself is alarming. An abnormal screening result on a 56-test panel most often turns out to be nothing on retesting. The correct response is to go back for the confirmatory test promptly, not to panic and not to ignore it.

Why a baby might miss screening, and how to fix it

• Home delivery, where no facility record exists to attach the screening to. Take the baby to the nearest government hospital or health facility as soon as possible and ask about newborn screening.
• Early discharge before the sample was taken. Ask the hospital whether the sample was collected; if not, ask when and where it can still be done.
• Wrong or dead mobile number in the record, so an abnormal result callback never reaches the family. Correct the number at the hospital.
• Parents declining the heel prick because they were not told what it was for. The prick is minor and the panel is free.
• Delivery outside Delhi, which places the baby outside the programme's geography.

What are the key dates and figures?

• 24 March 2026; Mission ANMOL announced in the Delhi Budget session for 2026-27.
• Rs 25 crore — allocation for the newborn screening programme.
• Rs 13,034 crore, the Delhi health sector budget within which the allocation sits.
• 56: number of tests in the screening panel.
• 1.5 lakh to 2.5 lakh, the scale-up in newborns screened per year.

There is no last date to apply, because Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana runs continuously as part of routine newborn care rather than through an application window.

Where do I raise a problem?

• The hospital's paediatric department or medical superintendent, if the screening sample was not taken or results are not being shared.
• The Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of NCT of Delhi, through its portal at health.delhi.gov.in, for a written complaint about a facility.
• Delhi's public grievance system, if a facility charges you for a test that the programme provides free.

Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana is free at the point of care. If any hospital, laboratory or agent asks a family to pay for the newborn screening panel covered under Mission ANMOL, that is a matter to escalate to the medical superintendent and then to the health department in writing.

How to check your screening status

Mukhyamantri Anmol Yojana has no application, no reference number system, and no online tracking portal, so there is nothing to log in and check in the way an applicant tracks a subsidy or a pension claim. What parents actually need to track is whether the sample was taken and whether the result came back normal. Use these steps:

1. Before discharge, ask the hospital directly whether the heel-prick sample was collected and note it down, ideally in the Mother and Child Protection (MCP) card or the discharge summary. This is the only "confirmation" the programme currently offers at the point of collection.
2. Do not wait for a call if you are unsure. Since there is no portal or SMS tracking number to check status against, the only reliable way to know a result is normal is the absence of a callback combined with your own follow-up call to the hospital's paediatric or newborn screening desk a few weeks after birth.
3. Call the hospital where the baby was delivered, not a central Mission ANMOL helpline, since none has been published. Government hospitals in Delhi keep the newborn screening register at the paediatric or SNCU (Special Newborn Care Unit) desk; quote the mother's name, admission date, and the baby's date of birth.
4. If delivery was at a private hospital, the same rule applies: the private facility that took the sample is responsible for the result and the callback, not the Delhi Health Department directly.
5. For a general query about the programme itself rather than one baby's result, the Delhi Directorate of Health Services portal at health.delhi.gov.in carries department contact details, since no dedicated Mission ANMOL helpline number has been announced.
6. Keep the MCP card at every subsequent immunisation visit, because Anganwadi and ASHA workers who see the child later can also confirm from local health records whether screening was completed.

Until Mission ANMOL rolls out a citizen-facing tracking number or SMS alert system, the hospital of delivery remains the single point of contact for a screening result, and proactively calling that hospital after two to four weeks is more reliable than waiting for an alert that may not come for a normal result.