Mumbai: Maharashtra has detected 6,111 new tuberculosis (TB) cases within the first 35 days of the Centre’s 100-day TB-Free India campaign, while 11,091 villages in the state were identified as high-risk through an AI-based assessment system, a minister informed the legislative assembly on Wednesday.In a written reply, public health minister Prakash Abitkar acknowledged that villages in Nagpur (482), Yavatmal (539), Amravati (504), Nashik (488) and Raigad (488) were among those identified by the Centre’s AI-based system as high-risk under the “100-Day TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan”.“Under the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme, risk-based screening, active case finding and registration on the Nikshay portal are carried out regularly in all districts. No specific geographical area has been found to have an abnormally high burden of tuberculosis,” the minister said.Meanwhile, data released by the state health department shows that the incidence of TB in Mumbai has been dropping over the last three years.Data on pulmonary TB showed that 29,962 cases were reported from Mumbai in 2023, followed by 16,649 cases in 2024 and 21,135 cases in 2025 (this data doesn’t include extrapulmonary cases and patients from neighbouring cities who come to Mumbai for testing and treatment).“There has been a slight drop in the number of TB cases in the city. We have been conducting 2.2 lakh tests for the last two years, but the number of positive cases has dropped in these consecutive years,” said BMC Executive Health Officer Dr Daksha Shah.The state data also showed that Malad, Dadar, Andheri and Govandi were the major TB hotspots in Mumbai in 2025. “However, even here, we have noted a decrease in new cases recorded in these areas as compared to previous years,” said an official. Malad reported the highest number of TB cases at 2,771 in 2025, followed by Andheri West with 2,349, Dadar with 2,245, Govandi with 2,163 and Andheri East with 1,739 cases.On Wednesday, Abitkar denied in the House that diagnosis and treatment were being delayed due to a shortage of AI-enabled diagnostic equipment or CB-NAAT machines.The minister said Maharashtra currently has 117 AI-based handheld X-ray machines, 171 CB-NAAT machines and 746 TrueNAAT machines, taking the total number of advanced TB diagnostic machines in the state to 917.
