First BIMSTEC Health Ministers Meeting Held in Colombo

The health ministries of the Bay of Bengal grouping sat down together for the very first time on 11 November 2026, and the sitting ended with a Joint Ministerial Statement carried without a single dissenting voice. Colombo was the venue, and India was represented by Jagat Prakash Nadda, who holds the Health and Family Welfare portfolio alongside Chemicals and Fertilizers.

How the forum came about

BIMSTEC had no standing channel linking its health ministries until the Sixth BIMSTEC Summit at Bangkok in April 2025 resolved to create one. Colombo was the first fruit of that decision. Ministers and senior officials of seven member states took part, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand, and the chair was taken by Sri Lanka's Minister of Health and Mass Media, Nalinda Jayatissa. The ministers settled that this meeting and the senior officials' meeting feeding into it will recur once in two years, and Thailand offered to host the second edition in 2028.

What was adopted

Alongside the statement, the ministers accepted the Revised BIMSTEC Plan of Action on Public Health (2026-2030), a roadmap covering disease surveillance, pandemic preparedness, digital health, traditional medicine, the One Health approach and the building of a health workforce. The statement itself anchors the grouping to Universal Health Coverage and to Sustainable Development Goal 3, and asks members to explore a BIMSTEC Digital Health Framework for telemedicine, portable electronic health records and the use of artificial intelligence in diagnosis and disease modelling. Three regional institutions were welcomed: a Regional Centre of Excellence for Public Health in Sri Lanka, a Centre of Excellence on Tropical Medicine in Thailand, and India's own offer in traditional medicine. Bangladesh's idea of a Regional Zoonotic Disease Observatory with an early warning system also found favour.

India's offers at Colombo

Mr Nadda announced that India will host the BIMSTEC Centre of Excellence in Traditional Medicine at the Institute of Teaching and Research in Ayurveda, Jamnagar, in Gujarat. Setting out India's own record, he spoke of more than 1.85 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, cashless hospital cover of up to Rs 5 lakh a family each year under AB PM-JAY reaching over 60 crore people, and the eSanjeevani telemedicine service crossing 50 crore consultations.

Bilateral gains with Sri Lanka and Nepal

On the sidelines a memorandum was exchanged for 100 more fully equipped ambulances for Sri Lanka's 1990 Suwa Seriya emergency service, backed by Indian grant aid of about USD 5.28 million. India had earlier given USD 7.5 million in 2016 and USD 15.02 million in 2018 towards 297 ambulances for the same service. Mr Nadda also promised support for 50 medical kiosks, or health ATMs, for Sri Lanka's Arogya primary health centres, drawn from the USD 450 million rehabilitation package offered after Cyclone Ditwah. A separate meeting was held with Nepal's Minister for Health and Food Safety, Neesha Mehta.