An Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS) can be defined as the package of services that the government is providing or is aspiring to provide to its citizens in an equitable manner.

This country snapshot is one in a series of 24 snapshots looking at the governance dimensions of Essential Packages of Health Services in the Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Death priority countries. The snapshot explores several important dimensions of the EPHS in the country, such as how government policies contribute to the service coverage, population coverage, and financial coverage of the package.

The series of documents that best fits the definition of the EPHS in India is the Indian Public Health Standards (2012) series, plus Annexure II of the Guidelines for Community Processes (2013), which lists the services provided by community health workers referred to as accredited social health activists (ASHAs). While responsibility for health services resides with state governments, these documents were published by the central government in 2012 and 2013, and provide relatively specific information on the services that will be provided by community health workers and the first three levels of public sector health care facilities throughout India.