Health: Put on some weight

•The government has been unable to hike the outlays for the health sector to 3 per cent of GDP as promised in the Common Minimum Programme

• For this, budget allocation has to rise by at least 30 per cent a year. Current, increase is 15 per cent over the previous year

• At present, government’s expenditure on health is only about 1 per cent and was 0.98 per cent in 2006-07. The Centre’s share has increased to 0.34 per cent while it needs to be at least 1 per cent to reach the target of 2-3 per cent

•While the budgetary allocation for the National Rural Health Mission has not shown the necessary rise, the plan is also marred by infrastructural and political bottlenecks

•A new Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, to be launched in Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan, providing cover of Rs 30,000 for BPL workers, would need efficient monitoring to show desired impact

Civil aviation: A skymap

•A long-term civil aviation policy is yet to come

•Taxes on ATF are yet to be slashed

•The tendering process for construction of the Navi Mumbai airport is not complete yet.

Pharma: Growth regimen

• The Draft National Pharmaceutical Policy 2006 awaits clearance by a GoM

• Since the GoM is still holding meetings, the policy has yet to derive its final version

• The industry waits for clarity on the price-monitoring issues

... contd.