Swasth Panchayat Yojana (SPY) was launched by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Chhattisgarh in the year 2006. The literal translation of the phrase is the healthy village scheme. The programme, in general, aims to strengthen the involvement of Panchayat in the health sector. In specific, the programme aims to a) enable the communities, especially the Panchayat members to know and assess the status of health services at the Panchayat at and hamlet Levels, b) To rank Panchayats in order of their composite performance and identify specific weak areas in terms of defined indicators, c) To facilitate stakeholder dialogue at panchayat as well as higher levels for greater convergence, and, c) To encourage and assist every Panchayat to draw up and implement a participatory plan so as to improve its ranking as well as to address its health needs.

The National Health Mission (NHM) is a Government of India initiative. One element of the NHM is the Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committee (VHSNC), formed to take collective action on issues related to health and its social determinants at the village level. The committee is envisaged to take leadership in providing a platform for improving health, sanitation and nutrition services, addressing specific local needs and serve as mechanism for community-based planning and monitoring. In Chhattisgarh, 19180 VHSNCs have been formed covering 95% of villages. As per programme monitoring data, about 18500 VHSNCs regularly organize their monthly meetings and monitor health and social determinants related services using a monitoring tool. The monitoring tool captures both coverage and quality of government services. Based on the gaps identified, collective action is undertaken for local resolution of issues.