Bihar sets Feb deadline for govt doctors to register on ABDM health registry

Bihar sets February deadline for government doctors' registration on Health Professional Registry to enable digital prescriptions and streamline healthcare.

The Bihar government has set February as the deadline for all government doctors to complete registration on the Health Professional Registry (HPR) dashboard under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), officials said on Thursday.

Bihar sets Feb deadline for govt doctors to register on ABDM health registry

The HPR will enable doctors to issue digital prescriptions, a key step towards the government’s push for paperless healthcare delivery. The initiative aims to streamline consultations, diagnostic investigations and free drug dispensing in outpatient departments (OPDs) of government health facilities, from district hospitals down to health sub-centres.

Officials said compliance remained uneven. Of the 12,896 government doctors in the state, only about 66% have completed HPR registration so far, while 87% of the 34,214 government nurses have enrolled. The situation is worse in the private sector, with less than 11.9% of doctors and 14.5% of nurses completing the process.

“We have asked all civil surgeons to ensure completion of HPR registration for all doctors and nurses in the public sector within the next 10 days, and in any case by the end of this month,” said Shashank Shekhar Sinha, CEO, Bihar Swasthya Suraksha Samiti and state mission director of ABDM.

Vikram Pagaria, director of the National Health Authority (NHA), which implements the ABDM, suggested linking HPR registration with the login credentials of government doctors and nurses on the Bihar Health Application Visionary Yojana for All (BHAVYA). BHAVYA is an ABDM-compliant platform designed to digitally manage patient records and services at health and wellness centres.

Senior officials said reluctance among some doctors stems from the Aadhaar-based nature of HPR registration, which can reflect their engagement across multiple health facilities. They added that absenteeism linked to private practice by some government doctors has also been a concern.

The push for universal HPR registration comes amid the state government’s proposed move to ban private practice by government doctors under the fifth resolution, “Accessible health-secure life,” of its flagship Saat Nischay-3 (Seven Resolves 3.0) programme for 2025–30. The Bihar cabinet approved the rollout of Saat Nischay-3 on December 16, 2025.

Earlier, on January 27, the health department constituted a six-member committee, headed by Dr Rekha Jha, director-in-chief (nursing and disease control), Bihar health services, to consult stakeholders on the proposed move to ban private practice by government doctors.