Forty Years, Two Threads

Rajan Babu TB Hospital, Kingsway Camp

During a six-month posting at RBTB Hospital, one of Delhi's principal tuberculosis hospitals, Dr. Mittal began voluntary screening work in the surrounding resettlement colonies of Jahangir Puri, Seelam Pur, and Nand Nagri. What he found there — children with a persistent cough going undiagnosed for months — became the question his entire career would try to answer.

That same year, both the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and RBTB Hospital's Medical Superintendent formally certified his voluntary contribution to the rehabilitation, employment, and diversion therapy of poor tuberculous patients.

MD Pediatrics, Then a Year in Rural Practice

After completing MD Pediatrics at PGIMS Rohtak, Dr. Mittal chose a year of rural service in the remote village of Samargopalpur — first-hand exposure to what village-level medicine actually looks like, and the resolve that took root there: that care for the underserved could not be occasional, it had to be structural.

Civil Hospital Sonipat, and the Founding of Mittal Nursing Home

Dr. Mittal joined Civil Hospital Sonipat under Dr. S.K. Puri, working in the hospital's newborn and child care. In 1992, he and his wife Dr. Deepmala Mittal founded Mittal Nursing Home — which added neonatal ventilation in 1994, expanded NICU/PICU ventilation in 1999 and later set up a Kangaroo Mother Care unit. This is the base from which every free TB camp since has been run.

Beyond TB: Becoming a Reporting Centre for Polio

In these years, routine clinical work was fought alongside three enemies at once — tuberculosis, tetanus, and polio. Mittal Nursing Home became a committed reporting centre under the National Polio Surveillance Project (a Government of India & WHO collaboration), reporting AFP cases from the mid-1990s (the earliest appreciation letter from the District Immunization Officer is dated 3 May 1995), formalised by a designation letter from the District Immunization Officer, Sonepat, dated 8 May 1998, requiring a case report — even a "nil" report — every Monday. WHO thanked the centre again in 2007 for a decade of unbroken reporting toward polio eradication.

District and State Felicitation

The District Administration, Sonipat honoured his work on Independence Day 2009. In 2010, he was felicitated by the Chief Minister of Haryana at the State-level Independence Day function, for contribution to child health, polio eradication and disease control in Sonipat district.

President, IAP Haryana

From 2015 onward, pediatric TB treatment continued alongside NICU care and community outreach. These years also marked the start of a second, parallel thread: growing engagement with IAP, reaching a first peak in 2018, when Dr. Mittal was elected President of IAP Haryana — the base every later state and national IAP role would build on.

IAP National Certification in the TB Elimination Program

On 7 April 2023, Dr. Mittal received an Indian Academy of Pediatrics certificate for National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) training — a formal link between decades of ground-level TB work and India's official elimination programme, ahead of the state nodal roles and district task force that followed.

WHO Appreciation, Brand Ambassadorship & National IAP Board

On 9 July 2024, WHO's National Public Health Surveillance Network (Rohtak Unit) wrote directly to Dr. Mittal, commending his sustained work on polio eradication, measles-rubella elimination, VPD surveillance, and outbreak reporting as a benchmark for public–private health collaboration. On 16 September 2024, the Municipal Corporation of Sonipat appointed him Brand Ambassador for Swachh Sarvekshan 2024. The same year, he was elevated to IAP National Executive Board Member, and on Independence Day, a Cabinet Minister of Haryana felicitated him for his contributions to child health.

Purkhas Camp and the Groundwork for a Task Force

Central IAP appointed Dr. Mittal Member of its Grievance Redressal Cell this year — part of a growing state and national role that led, the following year, to the formal Task Force launch.

On 10 June 2025, the district-wide effort was tested at scale: a free TB detection and child health camp at Geeta Vidya Mandir, village Purkhas — Dr. Mittal's own birthplace — offered free TB screening, BCG vaccination, nutrition kits, X-ray, blood tests, and sputum testing in partnership with the District TB Office under NTEP. It was covered by Action India, Haribhoomi, and Dainik Jagran, with the Mayor of Sonipat in attendance.

Sustained household screening, contact tracing, and free treatment in the months that followed led to Shekhpura and Purkhas being declared Sonipat's first two TB-Free Gram Panchayats, on a simple, replicable model: identify, treat, educate, declare. TB-awareness sessions also reached students at Rishikul School and others across the district, including a poster competition under the 100 Days TB-Free campaign.

World TB Day, the 100 Days Programme, and Building Capacity That Outlasts Any One Camp

The Zero Pediatric TB Sonipat Model was announced on 11 April 2026. On 23 May 2026, at the IAP Sonipat monthly meeting, Dr. Mittal proposed and formally launched the Baal Kshay Rog Mukt Sonipat Task Force, bringing together District TB Officer Dr. Tarun Yadav, District Immunization Officer Dr. Neeraj Yadav, and the district's child specialists under one coordinated structure.

World TB Day (24 March) falls two days after Dr. Mittal's birthday. In 2026 he marked the occasion with a free TB detection and child health camp at Kundli, Sonipat, organised with the District Health Department (DTO Dr. Tarun Yadav, Dr. Baldev Raj) and Dr. Nishant Mittal. Nutrition kits, routine and HPV immunization, pediatric and general check-ups, on-site Hb and blood-sugar testing, chest X-ray, and sputum testing were all offered free.

That same year, IAP appointed him Chief Returning Officer, IAP Election Committee (March 2026 – December 2027) — building on earlier IAP roles, including the Haryana presidency (2018). Under the national 100 Days TB-Free Programme, Dr. Mittal supported pediatric case-finding across Sonipat district, and personally trained ANMs and nursing staff in gastric aspirate technique — a standard method for collecting TB samples from children too young to produce sputum.

On 8 April 2026, World Health Partners (WHP), the State TB Cell Haryana, and SAATHII convened a State Level Pediatric TB Consultation at Panchkula. Dr. Mittal was given the district case-study slot: "Sonipat Pediatric TB Action Model: From Detection to Elimination,". On 26 February 2026, the State TB Cell had already invited him as featured speaker for an ECHO session on "End TB: Where We Stand, Why We Struggle & Why We Must Change" and "BCG in India." On 10 May 2026, IAP Haryana and AHA Haryana invited him to speak at their Annual State CME in Kurukshetra — three state-level platforms in under three months.

Nikshay data from the district tracked a marked reduction in pediatric TB cases between Q1 and Q2 of 2026, from 53 to 34 (35.8%), coinciding with coordinated screening and follow-up. Dainik Bhaskar covered the decline on 6 July 2026, noting a further review three months on.