Government maps rural frontline cadres across health and livelihoods
Administrative data identifies more than nine lakh Community Resource Persons alongside large ASHA and Anganwadi networks.
A government backgrounder reports more than nine lakh Community Resource Persons working across rural livelihoods, finance, insurance, gender and community development, including about 4.08 lakh livelihood resource persons.
It separately reports more than 10.40 lakh ASHAs and 10.58 lakh trained Anganwadi Workers. Within the livelihood network, it lists more than 1.91 lakh Krishi Sakhis, around 1.70 lakh Pashu Sakhis, 2,012 Matsya Sakhis and 48,785 Udyog Sakhis. As of June 2026, 4.32 lakh enterprises were reported as supported through the Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme.
Why it matters
Frontline workers and peer cadres are central to whether rural households can access health, nutrition, finance, agricultural advice and livelihood programmes in practice.
SCULTRA point of view
Headcount should be paired with workload, training quality, payment timeliness, retention, service coverage, grievance handling and independently measured household outcomes. Cadres should not be treated as interchangeable or automatically additive.
Limitations
The backgrounder compiles administrative counts from multiple programmes and dates. The groups may overlap, definitions differ, and the release does not provide a unique-worker total, vacancy rate, compensation data, coverage denominator or causal evaluation of service outcomes.
Source: Press Information Bureau / PIB Research and Ministry of Rural Development, 20 September 2026.