인도·남아시아

This paper traces the history of the evolution of India’s healthcare policy framework, focusing on its major objectives, challenges faced, and outcomes emerged. Though the groundwork for the healthcare framework was laid down by the Bhore Committee’s well-thought-out report in 1946, the country’s attention was focused on controlling and eradicating several communicable diseases in the first three decades post-independence. It was only in 1983 that the country framed the first National Health Policy (NHP) with the goal of improving healthcare services. The NHP-1983 was replaced by NHP-2002, which, in turn, was replaced by NHP-2017. Several other policy initiatives were also concurrently undertaken, which, among others, included Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) (which was subsumed under National Health Mission in 2015), Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), and Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM). The key themes prevalent across most of these policies and specific initiatives included: (i) increasing public health spending and reducing out-of-pocket or catastrophic health spending; (ii) addressing rural-urban inequalities in healthcare; (iii) developing primary healthcare; and (iv) achieving universal health coverage.