The Mizoram Universal Healthcare Scheme launched on April 1, 2025 with a Rs 50 crore annual outlay. Six months in, claims had hit Rs 129.5 crore. By the end of the 2025-26 financial year, total payouts had crossed Rs 164 crore — more than three times the original budget. The Asian Development Bank had earlier flagged the scheme's budget as 'unrealistic and misaligned with actual delivery costs.' The state's response to that vindicated warning is to take a $108 million (Rs 800 crore) loan from the same Asian Development Bank, signed in Manila on January 23, 2026, to keep the scheme alive.
MUHCS was supposed to cover all 12 lakh state residents, government and private sector alike, on a Rs 50 crore annual outlay. By April 30, 2026, EastMojo reported that several of Mizoram's largest private hospitals had quietly opted out of empanelment, leaving seriously ill patients to ration treatment between the state's already-strained public hospitals. The new ADB loan covers the gap the ADB itself predicted: the Centre will repay 90% as a grant and Mizoram is on the hook for only Rs 80 crore as a soft loan, which is to say the cost of running a state healthcare scheme that misjudged its own price tag is being absorbed by an entirely different government. For 2026-27, the state has allocated Rs 130 crore — already insufficient at last year's claim run-rate. To unlock the loan, Mizoram must 'expand the network of empanelled hospitals' — which is the exact problem the scheme had on Day One, before any money had been spent.