Retired Armed Forces personnel till 2002 could avail medical facilities only for specific high cost surgery/treatment for a limited number of diseases covered under the Army Group Insurance(Medical Branch Scheme) (AGI(MBS)) and Armed Forces Group Insurance Scheme(Management Information System) (AFGIS (MIS)) schemes. These medicare schemes could provide some relief to the ESM, but it was not a comprehensive scheme as compared to and available for other Central Government Employees. Therefore, the requirement was felt of establishing a medicare system which could provide quality medicare to the retirees of the Armed Forces. Based on this noble aim, and after detailed deliberations, a comprehensive scheme has taken shape as ECHS, authorised vide Government of India, Ministry of Defence letter No 22(i) 01/US/D(Res) dated 30 Dec 2002. The ECHS was launched with effect from 01 Apr 2003. With the advent of this scheme. Ex-servicemen pensioners and their dependants who were only entitled for treatment in service hospital are now authorised treatment, not only in service hospitals, but also in those civil/private hospitals which are specifically empanelled with the ECHS. The Scheme is financed by Govt of India. Conceptually the ECHS is to be managed through the existing infrastructure of the Armed Forces in order to minimise the administrative expenditure. The existing infrastructure includes command and control structure, spare capacity of Service Medical facilities (Hospitals and MI Rooms), procurement organisations for medical and non medical equipment, defence land and buildings etc.In order to ensure minimal disruption of the Scheme during war/training and availability of ECHS services in non military areas above mentioned resources are to be supplemented as follows :- Establishing new Armed Forces Polyclinics in Non Military areas,Augmenting existing medical facilities/clinics in some selected military stations to cater for heavy ESM load (Augmented Armed Forces Clinics). Empanelling civil hospitals and diagnostic centres.