The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has said that education and health will be the key priorities of the Twelfth Five year plan. He said that public expenditure on health has been increased from less than one per cent of GDP in 2006-07 to an estimated 1.4 per cent of GDP by the end of the Eleventh five year plan.
Dr. Singh stressed the need to work harder to achieve the goal of increasing public expenditure on health to two and a half per cent of GDP.Dr. Singh stressed the need to accelerate the efforts for providing universal access to health care.
The Prime Minister said that government's massive effort to rid the country of the terrible scourge of Polio has shown results.
Expressing satisfaction over the completion of one year without any new case of polio in India, Dr. Manmohan Singh said it has become possible because Centre and the States have worked in close partnership. He also lauded the work of NGOs and 23 Lakh volunteers who repeatedly vaccinated children even in the remotest areas of the country. Earlier, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced that World Health Organisation has taken India's name off the list of Polio endemic countries.
