Economists see greater role for public sector in health,education

“While India has taken several measures to empower the private sector over the last two decades,nothing has been done to empower the public sector to do what it must do: provide facilities for health,primary education and sanitation.” This was stated by Rakesh Mohan,senior research fellow at Stanford University and former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India,summarising the proceedings of an international consultation on social protection. The consultation was part of a two-day seminar on Human Development in India: Emerging Issues and Policy Perspectives,organised by the Institute for Human Development.

Mohan pointed out that if the correct fiscal prioritisation was done,it was feasible to allocate more in terms of actual expenditure even with the available resources. “A lot of discussion on financial inclusion should actually be about social protection,” he said.

Reinforcing the point,Amitabh Kundu,professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University,said with the withdrawal of the state,the responsibility of providing health facilities was passing to private insurance companies. Pulin Nayak,professor at Delhi School of Economics,pointed out that given the fact that a single illness can take even a middle class family off its budgetary balance,there was a need for a very strong public presence in health. It was necessary for the state to make social protection more professional,said Mukul Asher,professor at the Singapore National University. “The EPFO,for example,with its coverage of four per cent of the labour force,cannot claim to be representative at all,” he said.