CHENNAI (India CSR): Star Health and Allied Insurance Company Limited, one of India’s leading standalone health insurance companies, on Monday announced the launch of 32 Arogya Seva Kendra’s (ASK) across 9 states under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme, aimed at strengthening access to community-level primary healthcare.
The ASK health clinics, being implemented in partnership with Piramal Swasthya, part of Piramal Foundation, will provide structured primary care services at Zero Cost to the patients. These services include doctor consultations, lab diagnostics that help in screening of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as Anaemia, Diabetes, Hypertension, etc. Additionally medicines, counselling and adult pneumococcal vaccination support will also be provided.
The Arogya Seva Kendras in Phase 1 will be launched across 32 key cities including Nagercoil, Thoothukudi, Tiruppur, Chennai and Karur in Tamil Nadu; Mysuru, Hubballi, Belagavi, Davanagere and Ballari in Karnataka; Nizamabad, Khammam, Karimnagar and Mahabubnagar in Telangana; Kurnool and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh; Rourkela and Berhampur in Odisha; Bathinda, Amritsar and Patiala in Punjab; Gorakhpur, Mathura, Prayagraj and Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh; Asansol and Siliguri in West Bengal; and Nashik, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara and Akola in Maharashtra.
India continues to see rising burden of hypertension and diabetes; much of it remaining undiagnosed until advanced complications emerge. In districts across the nine participating states, hypertension prevalence ranges between approximately 20% – 40% among adults, with diabetes prevalence reaching nearly 29% in certain geographies.
Anand Roy, MD & CEO, Star Health and Allied Insurance Company Limited, said:
“India’s healthcare conversation must begin within the community. We cannot hospitalise our way out of the non-communicable disease (NCD) crisis; and we believe primary care is where healthcare equity begins.
When screening, medicines and follow-up are consistently accessible, complications are prevented before they become catastrophic. Institutions across the healthcare ecosystem have a shared responsibility to strengthen this foundation. Through this CSR initiative, we are contributing to that collective effort, and ensuring primary healthcare reaches people early, reliably and close to where they live.”
Each ASK health clinic provides the following Free of Cost Services
- MBBS doctor consultations
- Screening for hypertension, diabetes and oral health conditions
- Laboratory diagnostics for Blood Sugar, Haemoglobin, RDT, etc.
- Medicines for common ailments and chronic conditions
- Health counselling and awareness sessions
- Pneumococcal vaccination support for eligible beneficiaries
ASK health clinics will operate with dedicated medical teams and defined service protocols to ensure continuity and structured follow-up with the patients.
Star Health is funding the capital and operational expenditure under its CSR allocation, while Piramal Swasthya will manage implementation, staffing and clinical governance.
Ajay Piramal, Chairman, Piramal Group said:
“Over the past 17 years, Piramal Foundation has worked across India’s most challenging geographies, guided by deep community engagement and systems transformation. This CSR partnership with Star Health Insurance builds on that legacy – bringing trusted, comprehensive primary care closer to communities, impacting over a million lives through accessible consultations, diagnostics, and free medicines.”
Pneumococcal infections remain a significant contributor to respiratory disease burden and Pfizer, is enhancing the initiative with its knowledge and expertise in vaccination.
Saral Gupta, Director Market Access, Pfizer India said:
“Adult immunization remains an overlooked yet vital component of India’s preventive healthcare framework. Our country bears 23% of the global burden of community-acquired pneumonia and strengthening access to vaccination, especially for high risk adult groups, is critical to lowering the overall impact of such vaccine preventable diseases.
We congratulate Star Health on making adult vaccination an integral part of their Arogya Seva Kendra initiative, and are pleased to continue supporting it with our expertise.”
Through this initiative we want to reach over a million lives.
The clinics have been in districts identified as having elevated NCD burden and gaps in primary healthcare access.
The Chennai launch marks the beginning of a structured, long-term CSR initiative focused on preventive, accessible and continuous primary healthcare delivery.
(India CSR)
