linguistic:paraphrasing, structural:summarization
Health and sanitation

In his first year as prime minister, Modi reduced the central government's healthcare spending. In January 2015, the Modi government launched its New Health Policy (NHP), which did not increase the government's spending on healthcare but emphasised the role of private healthcare organisations. This represented a shift away from the policy of the previous Congress government, which had supported programmes to assist public health goals, including a reduction in child and maternal mortality rates. The National Health Mission, which included public health programmes targeted at these indices, received nearly 20 per cent less funding in 2015 than in the previous year. The Modi administration reduced the healthcare budget by a further 15% in its second year. The healthcare budget for the following year rose by 19%; private insurance providers positively viewed the budget but public health experts criticised its emphasis on the role of private healthcare providers and said it represented a shift away from public health facilities. The healthcare budget rose by 11.5% in 2018; the change included an allocation of ₹ 20 billion (US$240 million) for a government-funded health insurance program and a decrease in the budget of the National Health Mission.

Modi emphasised his government's efforts at sanitation as a means of ensuring good health. On 2 October 2014, Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission ("Clean India") campaign. The campaign's stated goals included the elimination of open defecation and manual scavenging within five years. As part of the programme, the Indian government began constructing millions of toilets in rural areas and encouraging people to use them. The government also announced plans to build new sewage treatment plants, and planned to construct 60 million toilets by 2019. The construction projects faced allegations of corruption and severe difficulty in getting people to use the newly constructed toilets. Sanitation cover in India increased from 38.7% in October 2014 to 84.1% in May 2018 but use of the new sanitary facilities was lower than the government's targets. In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated at least 180,000 diarrheal deaths in rural India were averted after the launch of the sanitation effort.

In March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Modi administration invoked the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and Disaster Management Act, 2005. The same month, all commercial domestic and international flights were suspended. Modi announced a 14-hour curfew on 22 March, and followed with a three-week "total lockdown" two days later. Restrictions were gradually lifted beginning in April, and were completely revoked in November 2020. A second wave of the pandemic that began in March 2021 was significantly more devastating than the first; some parts of India experienced shortages of vaccines, hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and other medical supplies. In late April India reported over 400,000 cases in a 24-hour period, the first country to do so. India began its vaccination programme in January 2021; in January 2022, India announced it had administered about 1.7 billion doses of vaccines and that more than 720 million people were fully vaccinated. In May 2022, the WHO estimated 4.7 million people had died of COVID-19 in India, mostly during the second wave in mid 2021—almost 10 times the Indian government's estimate. The Modi administration rejected the WHO's estimate.