Health
- Health infrastructure in India
- Unemployment
- Effects of unemployment
A healthy person can fully realize his potential and can be an asset for the economy. An unhealthy person shall not be able to realize his potential and can be a liability for the economy. The national health policy of India is aimed towards improving access to health services and improving nutrition; especially among the underprivileged classes.
The government health system is composed of many tiers of hospitals. The Primary Health Centres are the bottom of this tier, and provide general medical care to rural people. This is followed by Community Health Centres in bigger Tehsils or Block level towns. The District Hospitals are at district level. Further, medical colleges are present in major cities where doctors of all specialties are present.
The reach of healthcare services is still too little but reduction in infant mortality and improvement in life expectancy over the years have shown that the healthcare system has indeed helped in improving the quality of human resources.
Health Infrastructure
| 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SC/PHC/CHC | 181,139 | 182,709 | 184,359 | 185,933 | 187,505 |
| Dispensaries and hospitals | 29,274 | 29,715 | 29,957 | 30,044 | 31,641 |
| Beds | 628,708 | 675,779 | 754,724 | 634,879 | 710,761 |
| Doctors (Allopathy) | 45,106 | 33,536 | 20,422 | 25,282 | 17,982 |
| Nursing staff | 2,344,241 | 2,621,981 | 2,639,229 | 2,778,248 | 2,878,182 |
Source: National Health Policy 2018
SC: Sub centre, PHC: Primary Health Centre, CHC: Community Health Centre
Unemployment:
When a person is actively seeking a job but is unable to get employed, he is called an unemployed person. People in the working age (15 to 59 years) only can be termed unemployed if any one of them is without a gainful employment. Additionally, if a person voluntarily does not want to work he cannot be termed as unemployed.
Seasonal Unemployment:
This type of unemployment is more prevalent in rural areas. The farming cycle is season based. There are certain months which are quite busy for a farm worker. There are many other months when a farm worker is without a work.
Hidden Unemployment
This type of unemployment is also more prevalent in rural areas. To understand this, let us take the example of a family with 8 working members. All of them are working on their farm. The size of the farm makes it possible to be efficiently managed by 5 persons only. The extra three persons are not contributing towards any growth in productivity. They are working because they have no other gainful employment. Their potential could have given better results if utilised elsewhere. Similar situation can also be seen in some family owned shops where all the family members may be working in the same shop but not adding substantially to the output.
Educated Unemployed
The problem of unemployment among the educated youth is very high in urban areas. Now-a-days, even highly educated youths; like graduates and postgraduates; are unable to find a job. Some analysts suggest that most of the highly educated youth do not possess employability. But most of the analysts say that it is because of demand supply gap.
While many technically qualified people are unemployed, there are many jobs remaining vacant because of lack properly trained person.
Effects of Unemployment
- Unemployment can be emotionally draining on the unemployed person.
- It can be a financial and emotional drain on his family members.
- A large number of unemployed people is ultimately a liability for the society.
- High rate of unemployment can also increase the crime rate.
Employment Scenario in Different Sectors in India
Agriculture is still the largest employer. However, the percentage of people working in agriculture has declined in recent years. Due to the fact the agriculture is the largest employer, the problem of seasonal and hidden unemployment is quite high in India.
The secondary and tertiary sectors have failed to generate employment in enough numbers which could absorb the surplus labour force. In the secondary sector, small scale sector is more labour intensive and hence provides employment to a large number of people. In recent years, the IT sector has produced more opportunities for the technically qualified people.