Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 Implementation Tracker
The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 (MHCA) was enacted in 2018 to protect and promote the rights of people living with mental health conditions and ensure access to mental health treatment and services. However, seven years later, the fundamentals necessary for its effective administration are yet to be properly implemented.
Taking cognisance of this, the Keshav Desiraju India Mental Health Observatory has created the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 Implementation Tracker (MHCA Tracker) to track the implementation status of the MHCA at the National level and across States & Union Territories.
We sourced this information from government orders and notifications, meeting notes of the respective State Mental Health Authorities, credible news articles, and from individuals and organisations working in the mental health sector.
We encourage individuals and organisations involved in MHCA implementation, government stakeholders, media professionals, and other stakeholders to share relevant updates with us.
- Track the implementation of the MHCA across various Indian states and UTs and at the national level to ensure compliance and identify gaps.
- Consolidate all publicly available information related to the MHCA Tracker, enhancing ease of access to policymakers, civil society organisations, journalists, and other stakeholders.
- Establish a collaborative platform where individuals and organisations can contribute to and update the resource, ensuring comprehensive coverage and accuracy.
Through the MHCA Tracker, we aim to empower stakeholders with the data needed to push for more effective implementation of the MHCA, thereby facilitating access to rights-based mental health care.
The MHCA Tracker has two parts:
National Tracker
This Airtable page contains thirteen provisions relevant to the Union Government or the Central Mental Health Authority (CMHA).
States & Union Territories Tracker:
The Airtable page for States & UTs presents thirteen provisions relevant to 28 states and 8 Union Territories.
Both trackers can be accessed by clicking on their respective buttons in the panel on the right.
The trackers can be viewed in two formats:
Gallery view:
The data is displayed as large cards in a grid.
There are 36 cards in the States & UTs Tracker, each displaying the name of the relevant state or union territory. The National Tracker only has a single card labelled as ‘National’.
Simply click on the relevant card to see the status of the country or the selected State/UTs across all provisions.
Grid view:
Grid view displays the data as a series of rows and columns.
In this view, the provisions of the MHCA are listed at the top of the sheet. In the States & UTs page, the names of the states and union territories are on the left.
Where available, references are cited, and hyperlinks are embedded directly within the cards and cells in the Gallery and Grid views respectively.
Information for the MHCA Tracker has been sourced from several partners of Keshav Desiraju IMHO. The team at the IMHO would like to acknowledge the efforts of Shreyus Sukhija, Shivani Chaudhary, and Ritika Goyal in compiling all the information on the Tracker from various sources. We extend our gratitude to mental health advocates, people with lived experience and other stakeholders that are working tirelessly in this space to make mental health more equitable and accessible.
Please contribute to this resource by sharing updated information from your respective states or at a national level along with official data source through this form or by sending them to imho@cmhlp.org.
- Government orders, circulars, notifications or press releases
- Credible news reports from your local newspapers
- RTI responses filed on the MHCA
- Official copies of meeting notes from the relevant State authorities.
- Any other relevant resources
If you have any questions or recommendations to improve the resource, please write to us.
Disclaimer
The data in the MHCA Implementation Tracker by IMHO is based on publicly available information and contributions from various sources in the mental health sector. While we strive for accuracy, we do not guarantee the completeness, recency, or reliability of this information. Stakeholders should verify details independently and use this resource as a guide for advocating better implementation of the MHCA at both national and state levels.
Licensing
The MHCA Tracker is made available under the Open Database License: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/. Any rights in individual contents of the database are licensed under the Database Contents License: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/dbcl/1.0/
