This was the proposal made in the paper titled Vision 2035: Public Health Surveillance in India, in conjunction with Canada’s University of Manitoba. The paper was released by Dr Rajiv Kumar, Dr Vinod K Paul, member, Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog, and Dr Rakesh Sarwal, additional secretary.

"Going forward, India's public health surveillance will be based on individual Electronic Health Records (EHR) that capture and amalgamate individuals' health-care related information through the use of a unique health identifier (UHID). This will made India’s public health surveillance system more responsive and predictive to enhance preparedness for action at all levels,” said a statement by Niti Aayog.

The paper also touches upon the need for expanded referral networks and an extensive laboratory capacity, with the building blocks for this plan being termed as “interdependent federated system of governance between the Centre and states”. The new data-sharing mechanism will involve the use of new analytics, health informatics, and data science including innovative ways of disseminating ‘information for action’.

The goal of the PHS should include forecasting epidemic outbreaks for communicable and emerging diseases, especially NCDs.

"The paper released is envisaged to serve as a vision document to propel public health surveillance in India and establish India as a global leader in the area," NITI Aayog said in the statement.

Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman of NITI Aayog, said India has made substantial progress in the prevention, control and elimination of major communicable diseases. "The time is right to enhance the surveillance of non-communicable diseases and to replace traditional surveillance systems of data-entry with recent developments in digital health and technology, in alignment with the National Digital Health Mission," he added.