Dhanvantari Arogya Rath Yojana (GBOCWWB)

What is Dhanvantari Arogya Rath Yojana?

Dhanvantari Arogya Rath Yojana is a mobile healthcare scheme of the Gujarat Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Board (GBOCWWB), the statutory board set up under the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996 and run by the Labour, Skill Development and Employment Department, Government of Gujarat.

According to the Board's own scheme document, the scheme "has been implemented to ensure that construction workers and their families get primary medical treatment at their doorsteps, prevent serious diseases and maintain their health at places including construction sites, labor colonies and Kadianaka."

The word kadianaka is the key to understanding this scheme. A kadianaka is the street-corner labour chowk where daily-wage construction workers in Gujarati cities gather at dawn waiting to be picked up for the day's work. A worker standing there cannot leave to visit a health centre: leaving means losing the day's wage. Dhanvantari Arogya Rath Yojana inverts that: the clinic drives to the kadianaka.

Main features

• A mobile medical van with a doctor and paramedic staff visits construction sites, labour colonies and kadianakas.
• Treatment, laboratory tests and medicines are free on the spot.
• No application, no form and no waiting list.
• Gujarat operates 206 Dhanvantari Arogya Raths across 34 districts, after 50 new vans were flagged off on 13 March 2026.
• Delivered by EMRI Green Health Services Gujarat (GVK-108) under a tripartite MoU with the Health Department and the Board.

Who is eligible for Dhanvantari Arogya Rath Yojana?

You can be treated if:

• You are a construction worker in Gujarat, working on a building or other construction site.
• You are a family member of a construction worker, spouse, children and dependants are covered by the same words in the Board's eligibility line.
• You are present at a construction site, labour colony or kadianaka where the rath is stationed.

You are not eligible if:

• You are not a construction worker or the family member of one. The scheme is financed from the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Fund, which is collected as a cess on construction and can only be spent on construction workers.
• You need inpatient, emergency, surgical or specialist care. The rath is a primary care and first-aid unit. It stabilises, tests and refers, but it cannot admit a patient or perform a procedure.

The Board's scheme document does not impose an income limit, an age limit or a registration precondition on this particular scheme. That said, holding a valid e-Nirman construction worker card is the simplest way to identify yourself to the van team, and it is what opens the Board's other schemes: education assistance, maternity assistance, housing subsidy and accidental death assistance: to your household.

What treatment does the Dhanvantari Arogya Rath provide?

The Board's benefit line lists the services the van gives on the spot:

• Treatment of primary injuries, the cuts, sprains, burns and minor wounds that dominate site medicine.
• Common diseases — fever, diarrhoea, vomiting and skin diseases. Skin disease matters more than it sounds on a construction site, where cement contact dermatitis and fungal infection are constant.
• Laboratory tests; urine, blood, blood sugar and malaria tests, carried out on the vehicle.
• Various diagnoses for workers and their families.
• Primary care of women and children in the worker's family.
• Antenatal care for pregnant women during pregnancy.
• Free medicines, dispensed on the spot.

Blood sugar testing deserves a specific mention. It is the one service on this list that finds a disease the worker did not come in for. A migrant worker with undiagnosed diabetes will never present at a clinic for it, and the Board's stated aim of "preventing serious diseases" rests largely on this kind of opportunistic screening.

How to apply for and use the Dhanvantari Arogya Rath

Dhanvantari Arogya Rath Yojana has no application form. The Board's scheme document answers the question "Where to get benefit" in one line: first aid is provided by the Dhanvantari Arogya Rath at the kadianaka, construction site or settlement. In practice:

1. Find out when the rath visits your area. Ask your site supervisor, the labour contractor, or the district office of the Construction Board. Vans run on a district route schedule that rotates between kadianakas, active sites and labour colonies.
2. Go to the van when it arrives and tell the team you are a construction worker. Carry your e-Nirman card if you have one, it is not compulsory, but it settles the question immediately.
3. Describe the complaint to the doctor and get the consultation. Ask for the laboratory tests you need, particularly a blood sugar test if you have never had one.
4. Collect the free medicines dispensed on the spot, and keep the prescription slip for your next visit.
5. Bring your family. Wives, children and pregnant women in the household are covered by the same eligibility line, and antenatal check-ups are one of the services the van is equipped for.
6. Act on a referral immediately if you are given one. Where the van finds something beyond primary care, ask the team which government hospital to go to, and check whether your household is covered under PM-JAY, which GBOCWWB also lists among its schemes.

How to get the rath to visit your site

1. Call the Board's toll-free helpline 1800-233-2324 and give the location, the name of the kadianaka or site, and roughly how many workers are there.
2. Approach the district office of the Construction Board in writing, with the same details, so that the request enters the district route planning.
3. Ask the employer or labour contractor to write to the district office. A request from the establishment carries weight because the site's worker count can be verified.

Route coverage is decided at district level, so the district office is the correct place to ask, not the state headquarters.

Who runs the scheme and how is it funded?

The Board does not operate the vehicles itself. Its scheme document records that the scheme "is implemented by EMRI GREEN HEALTH SERVICES GUJARAT GVK-108 through making tripartite MoU with Health Department and EMRI GREEN HEALTH SERVICES GUJARAT", and that the Board's procedure is to give a grant to EMRI Green Health Services Gujarat.

EMRI is the same operator that runs Gujarat's 108 emergency ambulance service, which is why the vans carry the GVK-108 branding and follow a comparable dispatch and record-keeping discipline.

The fleet has grown in stages. Before March 2026 the Construction Workers' Welfare Board ran 154 Dhanvantari Arogya Raths and the Gujarat Labour Welfare Board ran 25 mobile medical vans. On 13 March 2026 the Chief Minister flagged off 50 new Dhanvantari Arogya Raths and 6 new mobile medical vans, taking the totals to 206 raths and 31 mobile medical vans across 34 districts.

Common reasons a worker misses out

• Not knowing the schedule. There is no rejection in this scheme, only absence. The van comes and goes, and the workers who miss it are the ones who did not know it was coming.
• Assuming a card is needed. The Board's document lists no mandatory document. Workers without an e-Nirman card frequently stand aside believing they are not entitled.
• Assuming family members are excluded. Eligibility explicitly covers family members, including pregnant women and children.
• Expecting hospital-grade care. The rath is a primary care unit. A worker who needs an X-ray, surgery or admission has to be referred, and the referral is the correct outcome, not a failure of the scheme.
• Site not on any route. The fix is a written request to the district office, not a complaint to the van team.

Where to get help

• GBOCWWB toll-free helpline: 1800-233-2324
• Board office: 079-25502271
• Board website and scheme documents: bocwwb.gujarat.gov.in
• Worker registration portal: enirmanbocw.gujarat.gov.in
• Other Board schemes: sanman.gujarat.gov.in

Treatment on a Dhanvantari Arogya Rath is free, and no one; not the van team, not a contractor, not an agent, is entitled to charge a worker for a consultation, a test or a medicine given from it.