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fl uence and give larger credit to the Nehru
authored National Planning Committee
of the Congress Party, history tells us a
different story.
So planned development indeed helped
build India’s basic economic infrastructure
and provided the crutches for accumulation
of private capital through protectionist
policies and various subsidies,
it failed miserably with social sector development,
primarily health and education.
For example in the
health sector the
pharmaceuti-
cal industry and medical education ben-
efi ted from the planned development. The
pharma industry had protection through
the patents policy with India rejecting
product patents as well as massive subsi-
dies through cheap basic chemicals being
sold by public sector giants like Hindustan
Antibiotics, Bengal Chemicals, IDPL etc.
who perpetually were in the red not be-
cause of their ineffi ciency but because of
the subsidies via pricing of bulk drugs for
formulation units which were predomi-
nantly private sector. And medical
education received huge subsidies
through almost free education and
the outturns mainly went to the
private sector or worse still mi-
grated abroad. The conse-
quence of this was that the
public health sector became
the victim and private
healthcare grew from
strength to strength using
the crutches provided by
planned development.
Today the public sector
pharma industry has virtu-
ally disappeared and In-
dia’s private pharma capi-
talists have become
multi-nationals and global
players. Similarly Indian doctors
rule the roost globally and within
the country too are predominantly
serving private capital, and worse still
medical education is also increasingly
becoming privatised and for the future
this means even less human resources for
D EVELOPMENTAL PLANNING
the public sector. So this was not the fail-
ure of India’s planned development of the
health sector but it was planning for failure
of the public health sector!
Review of Health Planning
in India
Indian doctors rule the roost globally
and within the country too are
predominantly serving private capital
India’s tryst with planning seriously for
health began with the Bhore Committee
Report. Prior to that under colonial rule
the planning and provisioning was largely
restricted for the civil lines of the British
India territories and military enclaves.
The four-volume Bhore Committee Report
was submitted to the Government of
India in 1946. It defi ned the following
objectives for its plan for a National
Health Service:
1. The services should make adequate
provision for the medical care of the
individual in the curative and preventive
fi elds and for the active promotion
of positive health;
2. These services should be placed as
close to the people as possible, in order
to ensure their maximum use by the
community, which they are meant to
serve;
3. The health organization should provide
for the widest possible basis of cooperation
between the health personnel
and the people;
4. In order to promote the development of
the health programme on sound lines
the support of the medical and auxiliary
professions, such as those of dentists,
pharmacists and nurses, is essential;
provisions should, therefore, be
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