Closing the healthcare access gap: How Pulkita Aggarwal helped 52 children access Ayushman Bharat

A government welfare programme can offer substantial support, but for a family that does not know it exists or cannot navigate the process, that support can remain out of reach. For Pulkita Aggarwal, a Grade 12 student at Jayshree Periwal International School, Jaipur, this gap between the availability of public support and a family's ability to access it became something she wanted to address.

The idea grew from her work with children at Ashray Care Home in Jaipur, a residential organisation supporting children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS through shelter, healthcare, education and long-term care. Spending time with the children made Pulkita increasingly conscious of how important reliable healthcare access can be, particularly when a child's well-being depends on the systems and adults around them.

She also began noticing something beyond healthcare itself. A government scheme could exist and offer meaningful support, but it meant little to a family that did not know about it or understand how to access it. Pulkita wanted to work on that gap directly.

With guidance from Mr Purushottam, an experienced social-impact professional, she identified a Common Service Centre in Bahin village, Palwal district, Haryana. Through his local network, Pulkita was connected with the centre, whose authorised infrastructure made it possible to verify beneficiary status and facilitate Ayushman Bharat card generation for eligible children.

Bahin lies in the Hathin area of Palwal, close to the wider Mewat region, where healthcare access and last-mile delivery of public services remain important development concerns. It offered a setting where helping families understand and access an existing healthcare entitlement could have immediate, practical value.

In August 2026, Pulkita organised an Ayushman Bharat card-generation camp focused specifically on children under 18. Families could check their children's eligibility and existing card status, complete the necessary verification and, where eligible, have cards generated at no cost. By the end of the initiative, 52 children had received their Ayushman Bharat cards.

Much of the work, however, happened before the camp itself. Pulkita and those supporting the initiative went door to door across Bahin, speaking directly with families, explaining the scheme and encouraging them to attend. Some had never heard of Ayushman Bharat. Others knew about it but were unsure whether their children already had cards or what they needed to do next.

Those conversations changed Pulkita's understanding of what access really means. What had initially seemed like an awareness problem was often a chain of smaller obstacles separating a family from a resource already available to them. That became even clearer during the camp. Internet connectivity occasionally slowed registrations, while Aadhaar-linked OTPs sometimes had to be coordinated with relatives at home. In one instance, a child returned several times before the family could finally complete the verification process.

For Pulkita, these were more than administrative inconveniences. She saw how something as ordinary as a missed OTP, uncertainty about documentation or a weak internet connection could become the difference between knowing that support exists and actually being able to use it. One interaction stayed with her in particular. After completing the process, a mother told the team, “Now I am stress-free about hospital bills for my children.”

For Pulkita, that sentence captured what the day had really been about. The card itself was only part of the outcome. What mattered was the reassurance it gave a parent: knowing that healthcare support existed for her children and that she had taken the steps needed to access it. The experience also changed how Pulkita thought about community service. Impact, she realised, does not necessarily begin with inventing a new solution. Sometimes the programme and resources already exist, but the final connection to the person they were designed to serve is missing.

For Pulkita, the Bahin camp is only a beginning. With support from organisations such as the Indigo Prism Foundation, she hopes to take the initiative to reach more communities over the coming months and help more children and their families navigate the gap between available healthcare support and actually accessing it.

The 52 cards generated represent more than a numerical outcome. Each belongs to a child and a family who successfully navigated that last-mile gap. Behind each card is also a parent who can approach a future healthcare need with greater awareness of the support available to their family. What began as an observation while working with children at Ashray Care Home became something tangible in Bahin: 52 children connected to an existing healthcare entitlement, and for Pulkita, a much deeper understanding of what meaningful access really requires.

The experience reinforced a lesson she hopes to carry forward: sometimes social impact begins not by creating something new, but by paying attention to who is still being left out of what already exists, and finding a practical way to bring it within their reach.