Health services in India and Burma: their evolution and present status.

HEALTHiADMNISTRAION The provision of health care services to the people of India is a basic responsibility of state governments and to some extent of municipal corporations of the larger cities. The Union Government is responsible for this provision in Union administered territories. (a) Central Administration. The Union Government, through the Ministry of Health, generally has largely advisory and supportive functions. It initiates national programmes, e.g. malaria eradication and family planning, partially or totally financing such programmes. To her great credit India was the first country in the world to adopt family planning as a matter of national policy and for a time a special Family Planning Department functioned. Realization that the effectiveness of family planning activities could be greatly facilitated by integration with maternal and child health services, the Union Government in 1968 fused these two services into a Department of Family Planning and Maternal and Child Health under a commissioner. The family planning programme, however, continued to be directly financed from the centre. From that year the Ministry of Health comprised two main divisions-the Department of Family Planning and Maternal and Child Health and the DirectorateGeneral of Health Services concerned with all other aspects of health services, including medical and health education, nursing, and the vitally important subjects of nutrition and supervision of food supplies. (b) State Administration. Operating through State Health Departments responsible to State Ministers of Health, the autonomous position of these departments results in variations from state to state respecting staff organization, extent of health services