Provision of safe, timely and affordable access to surgical care is a key strategy to achieve universal health coverage in low-and middle-income countries.

The phase II of the Costing of Health Services (CHSI) study—a nationally representative study, is the first in India to generate evidence on cost of surgical care in public sector secondary care hospitals.

The cost evidence presented in our paper is critical for the implementation of the India’s national insurance program (AB PM-JAY) including its price setting, planning to scale-up public sector district hospitals to provide comprehensive surgical care, as well as determining efficiency of surgical interventions.