The core difference: who's covered
ECHS (Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme) is exclusively for retired Army, Navy and Air Force personnel who hold Ex-Servicemen status and draw a pension, plus their dependants. CGHS (Central Government Health Scheme) covers serving and retired civilian central government employees and pensioners. Railway and Armed Forces retirees are specifically excluded from CGHS — they're routed through their own dedicated schemes instead. A household is generally covered by one or the other, not both, unless it genuinely contains two separately-qualifying people (for example, one civilian government retiree and one military pensioner).
Are the benefit levels actually the same?
According to ECHS's own official comparison document ("CGHS & ECHS: Myths vs Realities," published on echs.gov.in), ECHS is designed to follow CGHS's OPD, IPD and investigation referral rules and treatment rates "with no deviations." In other words, the two schemes are structured to be financially equivalent for the beneficiary — the difference is in network and administration, not in the rate schedule.
Network size — by the numbers
ECHS's own document claims a larger network than CGHS:
| Metric | ECHS (ECHS's own figure) | CGHS (ECHS's own figure) |
|---|---|---|
| Wellness centres / polyclinics | ~433 | ~327 |
| Empanelled hospitals | ~3,500 | 2,248 |
Treat these as approximate and time-sensitive — hospital empanelment changes regularly, and since this comparison comes from ECHS's own self-published document, it's worth treating the framing (not necessarily the raw numbers) as somewhat one-sided.
Finding the actual empanelled hospital list
Neither list is something we'll try to reproduce here — both run into thousands of individual hospitals, change as empanelment is added, suspended or expires, and are genuinely only trustworthy pulled fresh from the source. Here's exactly where to look:
- ECHS: the official empanelled hospital details are hosted on the ECHS Beneficiary Payment Authorisation (BPA) portal at echsbpa.utiitsl.com/ECHS, searchable by region and city.
- CGHS: the official empanelled hospitals and diagnostic centres list is on the CGHS portal at cghs.mohfw.gov.in, with State and City filters and a status filter (Empanelled / Suspended / Expired) worth checking before you travel to one.
Always check the status filter, not just the name match. A hospital appearing in an old PDF or a third-party site doesn't guarantee current empanelment — CGHS's own portal explicitly separates Empanelled, Suspended and Expired facilities, and treatment at a suspended or expired facility may not be covered as cashless.
CGHS empanelled facilities, by city (sample)
To give a concrete sense of scale rather than just a headline number: as of the most recent count we could verify, CGHS listed 2,721 empanelled facilities across 93 cities. A sample of the larger city counts:
| City | Empanelled facilities |
|---|---|
| Delhi | 485 |
| Ghaziabad | 78 |
| Amritsar | 65 |
| Noida | 64 |
| Gurgaon | 61 |
| Jabalpur | 54 |
| Kolkata | 55 |
| Jalandhar | 43 |
| Bengaluru | 39 |
| Faridabad | 26 |
| Chandigarh | 21 |
This is illustrative, not exhaustive — CGHS covers more than 90 cities in total, and exact counts shift as empanelment changes. For ECHS, we could not find an equally granular official city-by-city breakdown; the BPA portal search above is the reliable way to check a specific city.
Structural differences worth knowing
- An ECHS polyclinic is headed by an "OIC Polyclinic," who is not necessarily a doctor. A CGHS wellness centre is headed by a Chief Medical Officer, who is a doctor. ECHS's own document confirms this difference while arguing it doesn't affect care quality in practice.
- Referral validity is generally 30 days, extended to 3 months for cancer cases (official, from the ECHS brochure).
- Beneficiaries above 75 can go directly to an empanelled hospital without a prior referral.
- CGHS's network is often described as more urban-concentrated, while ECHS emphasises coverage in remote and hilly areas — a reasonable difference given the geographic spread of military postings and retirement locations versus civilian government postings.
The honest caveat: what a recent CAG audit found
Independent reporting on a CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) audit — not an ECHS-authored source — identified real service-quality issues within ECHS: polyclinic staffing categories not revised since the scheme's 2003 inception despite a growing veteran population, medicine shortages at some centres, ambulances kept in service beyond their economic life, delayed hospital payments that in practice led some veterans to pay out-of-pocket despite the "cashless" promise, and inconsistent Aadhaar/emergency verification processes. This doesn't contradict the structural comparison above, but it's worth knowing before assuming "cashless and capless" always plays out smoothly in practice.
Frequently asked questions
Can I be covered by both ECHS and CGHS?
Generally no for a single person — your eligibility is determined by which category of pension you draw (military vs. civilian government).
Does ECHS charge different rates than CGHS?
No — ECHS is designed to follow CGHS's rate schedule with no deviations, per ECHS's own official documentation.
Which has more hospitals in my area?
This varies by location — there's no single official answer, so check current empanelment lists for your specific city or region.
Where can I find the official ECHS or CGHS empanelled hospital list?
ECHS: the BPA portal at echsbpa.utiitsl.com/ECHS. CGHS: the official portal at cghs.mohfw.gov.in, which lets you filter by state, city and empanelment status.