CGHS Centre Shuts Down as Agencies Clash, Seniors Caught in Turf War

CGHS patients, many elderly, are caught in a bureaucratic tussle between departments, raising serious questions about governance and healthcare continuity.

by :

Aryan Saini

| 8 Feb 2026 6:10 PM IST

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CGHS Centre Shuts Down as Agencies Clash, Seniors Caught in Turf War | Representative image | Photo courtesy: Special arrangement

CGHS Mumbai Row Puts Thousands of Senior Citizens at Medical Risk

A quiet administrative standoff between two Union government agencies is now threatening to shut down a critical public healthcare facility in Mumbai, placing the lives and wellbeing of more than 2,500 senior citizens at risk. The dispute is between the Santacruz Electronics Export Processing Zone (SEEPZ), which functions under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), which comes under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. What should have been resolved through routine inter-departmental coordination has instead spiralled into a crisis of governance, with CGHS beneficiaries left bearing the consequences.

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At the centre of this conflict is the CGHS Wellness Centre at SEEPZ (Andheri East), Mumbai, a facility that has served government employees, pensioners, and their dependents for more than three decades. The centre, which is scheduled to shut down from 9 February 2026, has operated uninterrupted for over 30 years from premises allotted by SEEPZ authorities. That continuity was broken when SEEPZ issued an eviction notice, citing its own institutional requirements for the building. The matter was referred by the Additional Director, CGHS Mumbai, to the CGHS Directorate in New Delhi for guidance. What followed, however, was not swift problem-solving but prolonged procedural drift.

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According to T.K. Damodaran, General Secretary of the CGHS Beneficiaries Welfare Association of India (CBWAI), the CGHS Directorate had clearly outlined two possible courses of action. The first was to initiate the formal process of identifying an alternative building—either through coordination with the Maharashtra government or by inviting private accommodation via public advertisement. The second was to seek permission from SEEPZ to allow the CGHS Wellness Centre to continue functioning in the existing premises until a viable alternative was secured. Damodaran points out that SEEPZ, despite being the authority that issued the eviction notice, also offered CGHS an alternative building in close proximity to the current centre. That offer, he says, was declined by CGHS Mumbai on technical grounds. For elderly beneficiaries who have depended on the same CGHS Wellness Centre for decades, the refusal is difficult to comprehend. “For senior citizens,” Damodaran argues, “the existence of the wellness centre matters more than its polish. Even a temporary arrangement would have preserved continuity of care.”

Why the CGHS Welness Centre Matters

To understand why this closure matters, one must understand what a CGHS Wellness Centre actually does. CGHS is not a peripheral service; it is the backbone of outpatient healthcare for central government employees and pensioners. A CGHS Wellness Centre provides daily outpatient consultations, medicine dispensation for chronic and acute conditions, referral services to empanelled hospitals, basic diagnostic support, and continuity of treatment for non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiac conditions, respiratory illnesses, and arthritis—conditions disproportionately affecting senior citizens. For many elderly beneficiaries, CGHS is not merely a convenience; it is their primary and sometimes only affordable interface with the healthcare system. Disrupting access, even temporarily, can mean missed medications, delayed diagnoses, and avoidable medical emergencies.

Against this backdrop, the decision taken on 2 February 2026 by the Chief Medical Officer in charge of the SEEPZ CGHS Wellness Centre to issue a notice stating that the centre would stop functioning from 9 February has caused deep alarm. The CGHS Beneficiaries Welfare Association of India describes the move as unilateral and arbitrary, arguing that it disregards the healthcare needs of thousands of beneficiaries, particularly super senior citizens. More significantly, the association points out that the decision was taken without consultation with the Zonal Advisory Committee (ZAC) and Local Advisory Committee (LAC)—bodies whose consultation is mandatory under CGHS guidelines before any major service disruption. In administrative terms, this omission raises serious questions about process and accountability within CGHS Mumbai.

Letter to Union Health Minister

As the crisis escalated, CBWAI wrote to Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda, urging the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to intervene. The association’s appeal was not for a permanent solution overnight, but for a temporary, humane one: to allow the CGHS Wellness Centre to shift on an interim basis to the alternative accommodation offered by SEEPZ, or to a temporary structure, until a suitable long-term facility could be finalised. The letter highlights a basic principle of public administration—that continuity of essential services must take precedence over inter-departmental rigidity.

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Damodaran remains unconvinced by CGHS Mumbai’s stated objections to the alternative premises. He argues that citing procedural requirements and safety compliance, while technically valid, ignores the reality on the ground. Across India, several CGHS dispensaries function from buildings that are far from ideal, often as interim arrangements. For beneficiaries, the perception is that administrative caution is being prioritised over patient welfare. “What worries people,” Damodaran says, “is that this refusal appears less about safety and more about avoiding responsibility for ensuring uninterrupted care.”

The controversy intensified after Priyesh Shah, an IRS officer currently serving as Additional Commissioner of Customs in Mumbai and also Joint Secretary, Western India Zone, CBWAI, wrote a sharply worded letter to senior CGHS officials. Shah, writing explicitly in his capacity as an office bearer of the registered beneficiaries’ association, framed the issue in stark terms warning that when institutions clash, it is ordinary people who suffer. In his letter, Shah noted that while SEEPZ required the premises for its own use, it had offered alternative accommodation within its staff quarters and even proposed providing an open plot for erecting a temporary structure using prefabricated cabins. According to Shah, these offers were summarily rejected by CGHS authorities.

Shah’s letter goes further, questioning the practicality of CGHS’s stated plan to shut the wellness centre for “three months” while searching for private premises. Drawing from his own administrative experience, he outlines the multiple stages involved in hiring rented accommodation through government procedures—certification from CPWD and state authorities, internal financial approvals, public advertisements, tendering, rent assessment, and final sanction. To suggest that this could be completed in three months, Shah argues, reflects either a misunderstanding of procedure or a troubling underestimation of its impact on patients. His broader appeal is for officials to move beyond departmental silos and act in the collective interest of the government and its beneficiaries.

As noted by Shah, SEEPZ authorities, for their part, also proposed an alternative open plot where CGHS could erect a temporary structure such as an Instacabin or Portacabin. Such temporary healthcare facilities are not unprecedented in government functioning, particularly during transitions or emergencies. Yet, in her formal response, Dr. Geetha Anandan, Additional Director, CGHS Mumbai, stated that no such proposal had been formally communicated through official channels with adequate details regarding location, utilities, permissions, and safety compliance. She stated in her reply that CGHS could not operate from premises deemed unsafe or non-compliant.

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While talking to The Probe, Dr. Anandan confirmed that the SEEPZ CGHS Wellness Centre in Andheri would indeed shut from 9 February 2026. She cited concerns about the safety of the alternate building that was offered by SEEPZ. “I am in talks with Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and we are exploring other options. In the interim, the senior citizens can access CGHS Wellness Centres at Kanjurmarg, Santacruz or Sahar. Any permanent relocation can take up to three months. I am also looking at private options,” she said speaking to The Probe.

That assurance, however, offers little comfort to beneficiaries. Speaking to The Probe, Priyesh Shah called the proposed alternative arrangements impractical. He pointed out that the other CGHS centres mentioned are already overcrowded, operate for limited hours, and are located in densely populated areas where access and waiting times are major challenges. Mumbai’s geography and traffic, he noted, make healthcare access as much about distance and time as about availability. Expecting thousands of additional patients—most of them elderly and chronically ill—to absorb into already stretched centres is not a solution; it is a deferral of responsibility.

At its core, this is not merely a dispute over a building. It is a test of whether public healthcare systems can respond humanely when administrative processes collide. Senior citizens dependent on CGHS are not abstractions; they are people managing multiple illnesses, limited mobility, and fixed incomes. Disrupting their access to routine care, even briefly, can have cascading consequences. A government that prides itself on expanding healthcare coverage must also demonstrate the capacity to protect existing services when institutional friction arises.