Health and India's Economic Development

Health is a form of human capital which facilitates economic development of a nation in very many ways. As poverty level has declined in the post-liberalsation period, the income level of the people has gone up. This has resulted in the expansion of health seeking behaviour of the people. Despite this public expenditure as a percent of GDP has not increased much. Even after the allocation of huge amount of funds through the NRHM programme, public expenditure as a present of GDP has reached just 1.37 percent in 2010-2011. The limited public public sector suffers from unlimited problems. As the public sector has failed to cope up with rise in health care demand, the private sector dominates the health care market which is evident from the fact that the private sector provides 76 percent of the healthcare in India. Rising cost of diagnosis, medicine and hospitalisation puch millions of Indian below the poverty line. India has one of the highest proportions of out-of-pocket (OOP) spending on healthcare in the world. The higher proportion of OOP spending has put India in the bracket of such extremely poor countries as Congo, Chad, Burundi, and Ghana.
India which boosts of high growth rate also has high disease burden. Chronic under investment in health has resulted in the country witnessing an increase in suffering and death from various diseases, accounting for 20 percent of the world's disease burden. If this grim scenario persists, India's demographic divident will not pay off. High growth is now generating the resources needed to enable India to address these problems on a war footing. Like infrastructure, social sector outlays must be seen as an integral aspect of out puch for prosperity. The present volume includes topics on such vital health issues such as health inequality, health, manpower, neonatal mortality, maternal manpower, tribal health, public expenditure on health, etc of India in general and of different states in particular.

Dr. L.N. Dash has completed his M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D and D.Litt degrees in Economics from Berhampur University. After working for 16 years in this University he joined the North Orissa University, Baripada in 2004. He has to his credti several research papers publsihed in journals or repute and edited books. He has also presented research papers in many national and international seminars and conferences in India and abroad. Dr. Dash has also chaired a session in the 10th International Conference on Health Economics held in Athens (Greece) in 2011. He is a prolific author and has published many important books in Economics. They include Women, Family Life and Rural Welfare (1993), The Feminine Gender (1999), World Bank and Economic Development of India (2000). Economics of Infrastructure: Growth and Development (2007), Infrastructure Developmant and the Indian Economy (2008), Education and Inclusive Development of India (2010), Health and India's Development Challenge (2011).