India's social sector spend is increasing, with trends such as direct benefits transfer, digital monitoring, private sector enablement and impact investment driving outcomes in sectors such as Water, Sanitation, And Hygiene (WASH), healthcare, financial Inclusion, social and rural development, livelihoods, and affordable housing. The sector has witnessed a paradigm shift from a treatment-based model to a preventive focused model. This is likely to accelerate growth opportunities in the sector.
By 2035, India’s healthcare workforce imperative may extend beyond expanding workforce capacity to ensuring that healthcare professionals are equipped to thrive in an AI-enabled, and digitally connected health system.
India’s healthcare sector would need to skill ~1.25 million professionals annually in Digital Health & AI to build workforce readiness at scale. Sustained through 2035, this effort could enable a significant share of the healthcare workforce to become future-ready.
Sandeep Jha
Partner, G & PS-HHSS
KPMG in India
Moving from innovation pilots to nationwide impact requires a shared data foundation, with ABDM as the common layer that every system and AI tool draws from. Hospitals that scale successfully treat transformation as a clinical and organisational change, not a technology purchase, and govern AI with the same rigour as any clinical intervention. Validation, data protection, and measurable outcomes are what will turn digital health from experimentation into everyday care.
Sandeep Jha
Partner, G&PS-HHSS
KPMG in India
India has given an identity to every patient, every clinician and every facility, but the medicine, the device and the hospital bill still do not have one. That gap is where our health system leaks: store rooms short of essential drugs while stock expires on the next shelf, quality alerts that take days to reach the affected shelf, and patients cleared for discharge who wait hours for a bill.
Standardised means the same product is recognised the first time, in any hospital, lab or state. Sustainable means data is entered once and runs stock, bill and claim together. Safe means a scan at the bedside, not a pharmacist's memory, proves the right patient got the right medicine. Common standards are what move us from visibility to intelligence.
Healthcare data remains scattered, creating disconnected “islands of health data” across providers, policy makes, payors and patients. Unlocking the full potential of digital health and intelligence requires organisations to invest in connecting these islands through interoperable, integrated, and secure systems for future ready care delivery.
Sandeep Jha
Partner, G&PS-HHSS
KPMG in India
India has built digital health platform at population scale, with close to 100 crore ABHA IDs and 140 crore linked health records. But IDs are infrastructure, not outcomes. ABDM's real test is whether a record is used at the next visit, follows the patient to a referral, or saves a repeat test. Too often we build the product first and write the policy later. In healthcare it has to be the other way round: consent, data usability, data security and data-retention rules must be settled before the code, not patched in after it.
The PPP landscape in Indian healthcare has evolved from infrastructure development‑led models to those centered on clinical service management, operational delivery, population health, and last‑mile care delivery. These models increasingly combine public health infrastructure with private sector delivery capabilities, technology, and payor system like AB-PMJAY.
Medical Value Travel (MVT) is emerging as a strategic growth engine for India and BRICS shaping healthcare as a globally tradable, accessible, and collaborative ecosystem. India’s role in the global market is expanding, and this creates a clear need for stronger alignment across policy, regulation, quality, and innovation.
By focusing on harmonisation and deeper collaboration among participating countries, we can open the path to a more sustainable and competitive future for the MVT sector.
Delivering comprehensive, actionable solutions across the value chain ranging from water resource abstraction to sustainable wastewater management
Driving the largest competitive framework to improve sanitation in urban areas (Swachh Survekshan)
11 Cr. household toilets constructed Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin (SBM-G)
10 Cr. tap connections provided to households (Jal Jeevan Mission)
4,900 Million Litres per Day (MLD) of sewerage treatment capacity created in National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG)
4,000+ towns to become Open Defecation Free (ODF+ certified) (Swachh Bharat Mission)
Access to multi-disciplinary teams with deep understanding and expertise of landscape across select sectors/domains
Wide presence at the national, state and Urban Local Body (ULB) level in the space of sanitation and waste management, including national programs such as Swachh Bharat Mission (urban and rural)
Experience working on India's flagship public health insurance/assurance scheme (Ayushman Bharat), universal health coverage, vaccine coverage, digital health
Experience of working on India’s flagship women and child nutrition support program (POSHAN) Prime Minister's Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition
Expertise in developing frameworks for progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Creates a predictable and compliance efficient tax environment, encouraging long-term investment in biopharma, med tech, and healthcare manufacturing
Budget reiterates ‘people-centric development’ approach through targeted interventions for women, Divyangjan, gig workers and vulnerable communities
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Partner, Government & Public Services (G&PS); Lead - Health, Human & Social Services (HHSS) and Office Managing Partner – KPMG in Hyderabad
KPMG in India
Partner and Global Lead - Water Sector, Government and Public Services
KPMG in India
