Despite India’s pledge 'Health for All by the Year 2000' at Alma-Ata in 1978 and signatory to the International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – Article 12, in which the State is obliged to achieve the highest attainable standard of health, the health scenario in India is abysmal.

In the context of poverty, access to public health systems is critical. Since 1990s, the public health system has been collapsing and the private health sector has flourished.

Health policy in India has shifted its focus from being a comprehensive universal healthcare system as defined by the Bhore Committee (1946) to a selective and targeted programme based healthcare policy with the public domain being confined to family planning, immunization, selected disease surveillance, medical education and research. With the limited resources, Government is finding it difficult to come up to the expectations of general public. With huge financial as well as manpower resources at its disposal, the private health sector has come up in a big way in providing health care facilities to the general public. The time has come to reclaim public health and make a paradigm shift from a policy-based entitlement for healthcare to a rights based entitlement.