Is NITI Aayog Even Thinking about Health?

The NITI Aayog has effectively stalled the finalisation and tabling of the National Health Policy 2015 in Parliament. The document, including the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare's report, should be revived to put forth a concrete plan for transforming the healthcare system in India.

The National Democratic Alliance government put a Draft Health Policy in the public domain for discussion and debate towards the end of 2014. It also set up various sub-committees in the Ministry of Health to engage with each of the main sections of the policy document and also called for the general public to send in their suggestions. After several rounds of debates and discussions, various stakeholders submitted their suggestions. By mid-2015 a revised version of the Draft Health Policy 2015 was reportedly put together but not released in the public domain. Thereafter, it was leaked in certain newspapers that highlighted the following key features of the policy (Sethi 2015a):

(i) That 2.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) as public health spending should be reached by 2020, of which 70% should be on primary healthcare.