Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012- 2017): A Hope for Better Health in India

The economy of India is based in part on planning through its five-year plans, which are developed, executed and monitored by the Planning Commission. The 12 Five Year Plan, which would be implemented across the country during 2012–13 to 2016–17, offers a significant opportunity to the government in our country for radically improving the approach towards public provisioning for socioeconomic development. Like the previous Five Year Plans, the next Plan too would have a larger vision, policies, priorities and strategies; but the medium for translating most of those ideas envisaged by the Planning Commission for the 12th Plan would be several health development schemes. Most of the issues pertaining to public health have been acknowledged by the policy makers and influenced to some extent the formulation process of the 12th Five Year Plan. It is commendable in this regard that the 12th Plan recognizes the need to provide comprehensive healthcare with greater emphasis on communicable diseases and preventive healthcare, need for up-gradation of rural healthcare services to Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) with districts as the units for planning, training and service provisioning.