Creating Jobs with Healthcare on SEZ & Govt land parcels; Research and Insights for Policy makers
Every citizen needs healthcare and there is huge need for healthcare services across geographies within our country. Running efficient healthcare system requires large scale Human Resources right from low skilled staff to highly trained Doctors and Researchers. As a result, development of healthcare services creates jobs at massive scale for every area of healthcare service provided.
Detailed research suggests due to the highly impactful Ayushman Bharat program and increasing penetration of health insurance programs, increasing number of citizens now have resources to pay for healthcare. Moreover, the changing demographics of the country with increase in number of senior citizens is also leading to higher demand for healthcare services. Presently India,however, has a severe shortage of medical infrastructure as well as human resources for healthcare (HRH). Research suggests that right from paramedical, nursing, trained technicians to highly trained Doctors there is a huge crunch of Human Resources compared to global standards and actual need.
This shortage of medical infrastructure coupled with increasing demand requires the Government to rapidly scale up the medical facilities of the country and come out with novel and innovative ways to achieve the healthcare targets, set forth by international agencies such as WHO, to achieve universal health coverage. Moreover COVID-19 pandemic has exposed major shortcomings within our healthcare systems highlighting an urgent need for development
As a part of our study we have analyzed land holdings of the State/ Central Governments, SEZs and PSU companies and realized that there are massive excess unused land banks available across the country. Some of the key bottlenecks for infrastructure development are the lack of land at affordable prices, clear legal land titles and multiple approvals required from different government departments
If the government wants to seriously ramp up the healthcare infrastructure in the next 5 years, it needs to consider leasing out this unused land to the private sector for healthcare development under the PPP model and also ensure smooth process for the development of this infrastructure by creating single window clearance procedures under each State government. On funding & financing side, various multilateral global agencies, development agencies, pension funds and insurance companies may be interested to invest in long term capital investment for appropriately structured revenue models.
Hence with concerted efforts of the government and a strong support from the private sector/ development agencies, India will be able to fulfill the gap in the healthcare infrastructure in the next 5 years