Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a major mental-health and emergency-care expansion in Budget 2026, upgrading two national institutes and boosting trauma capacity across district hospitals
Alongside key announcements in taxation, tourism and textiles,
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a significant push to strengthen India’s mental health and emergency medical infrastructure in the Union Budget 2026.
She
announced the creation of a National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS 2) by designating the national mental health institutes in Ranchi and Dispur as regional apex institutions under the umbrella of NIMHANS.
The minister emphasised that emergencies disproportionately push poor and vulnerable families into catastrophic health expenditure and committed to expanding district-level capacity by increasing emergency and trauma-care facilities by 50 per cent through new centres across the country.
Special focus will be directed toward the Purvodaya states (a government-ledinitiative aimed at accelerating the holistic development of India’s eastern region—specifically Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh) and the northeastern region, where access gaps remain widest.
Sitharaman positioned the mental health and emergency care package as central to the Budget’s broader mission of strengthening human development and building resilient health systems.
As of early 2026, there is one main, central National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in India, located in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
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