JOSH Teams: Youth Power to End TB by 2030

Launch: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) launched JOSH (Joint Squad for Health) Teams at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, under the TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan.
Objective: Strengthen youth-led community participation in TB elimination and accelerate India's goal of ending TB before 2030.
Who is mobilised: MY Bharat Volunteers and NCC Cadets.
Scale (Phase 1): Deployment in 55 districts across 11 States/Union Territories, with nationwide expansion planned.
Institutional Convergence: Three Ministries involved — Health and Family Welfare, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Defence — reflecting a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach.

Indicator	India	Global
Decline in TB incidence	21%	12%
TB treatment coverage	92%	78%

TB Mukt Panchayats: In 2026, 67,933 Panchayats across 697 districts were recognised as TB Mukt, signalling strong community-level ownership.
Technology deployment: AI-supported portable X-ray systems and rapid molecular diagnostic technologies for early detection and identification of drug resistance.
Digital tools launched: JOSH Flipbook, JOSH Brochure, Khushi Avatar e-Sangini service (available in 12 Indian languages) and a dedicated JOSH Teams feature on the TB Mukt Bharat App.

TB is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis and primarily affects the lungs (pulmonary TB).
India carries the world's largest TB burden, accounting for roughly a quarter of global cases.
India's National Strategic Plan (NSP) for TB Elimination had set an ambitious target of eliminating TB by 2025, ahead of the SDG target (3.3) of 2030 — the article now frames the goal as elimination before 2030.
Key existing interventions include the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP), Ni-kshay portal for patient tracking, Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana (direct benefit transfer for nutritional support), Ni-kshay Mitra under the Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan (2022) for community adoption of TB patients, and the TB Mukt Panchayat initiative.
An intensified 100-day TB elimination campaign was earlier rolled out to saturate case-finding and treatment services in high-burden districts.

Youth as change agents: Converts a massive volunteer base (MY Bharat, NCC) into a public-health workforce, addressing the human-resource gap at the last mile.
Stigma reduction: Social stigma — not just biology — sustains TB transmission; peer-led messaging is more effective than top-down campaigns.
Convergence model: Demonstrates inter-ministerial coordination, a template for other health and social programmes.
Federalism in action: TB Mukt Panchayats link local self-governments with national health targets, strengthening grassroots accountability.
Digital public health: AI-based diagnosis and multilingual digital services improve access and equity in early detection.

Article 21: Right to health is read into the Right to Life; state has a duty to provide adequate health facilities.
Article 47 (DPSP): Duty of the State to raise the level of nutrition, standard of living and improve public health; prohibits intoxicants harmful to health.
Seventh Schedule: 'Public health and sanitation, hospitals and dispensaries' is a State List (Entry 6) subject; 'Population control and family planning' is in the Concurrent List, enabling central schemes like NTEP.
Article 51A: Fundamental duties include protecting the environment and public health (Article 51A(g)) and developing scientific temper.
SDG 3.3: Commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals to end the TB epidemic by 2030.

Sustain funding and nutritional support to prevent relapse and catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditure.
Expand molecular diagnostics and universal drug-susceptibility testing to tackle MDR/XDR-TB.
Integrate TB screening with other programmes (diabetes, HIV, nutrition) given comorbidity linkages.
Strengthen data systems and decentralise ownership to Panchayats for durable elimination.