India’s health sector is diverse and includes not just modern medicine but also a range of traditional systems like Homeopathy, Ayurveda, Unani. The overall government expenditure on health is rather low at around 1.2 percent of GDP. Communicable diseases continue to be a major public health problem in India. There is also a rising incidence of non communicable diseases, old age diseases and mental health. There is near consensus among experts that the health sector in India is plagued by acute inequity in the form of unequal access to basic health care across regions, inadequate availability of health services and acute shortage of skilled man power. Most of the issues pertaining to public health have been acknowledged by the policy makers and have influencedthe formulation process of the 12th Five Year Plan. The Approach Paper recognises the need to provide comprehensive health care with greater emphasis on communicable diseases and preventive health care, need for upgradation of rural health care services with districts as units for planning, training and service provisioning and also the need for capital investment and bridging crucial and severe human resources gaps.

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Courtesy: Yojana Magazine