Though a large number of
Engineering Colleges and Management Institutes have come up all over India,
there are dearth of institutions for medical profession, both at professional
level and support staff like nursing and hospital attendants. This is apart
from very high fee for some private medical colleges, which make them out of
bounds of common middle class. Moreover, there is not enough post-graduate
seats available for general stream science students leading to shortage of
teachers in colleges.
We often complain of inadequate
health services infrastructure in the country. Can we improve it in absence of adequate
number of healthcare professionals? We need to immediately address it. Investment
in building quality health services infrastructure with the help of adequate
number of healthcare professional will strengthen our position in research and
earn precious foreign exchange by treating large number of foreign nationals.
If our engineers can earn foreign exchange by exporting software services, our
medical professionals can also earn equal amount of foreign exchange by way of
providing services to foreign nationals at affordable rates.
Similarly, the increased
post-graduate seats in general stream science courses will lead to strengthen
our education system allowing our colleges to admit foreign students apart from
curbing our students going abroad. We can become foreign exchange earner for
providing educational services too.
The collateral benefit of health
services and educational services exports is increase in incoming tourism flow,
which again will give boost to hotels, airlines, transport services etc.
Thus spending on education in the
fields of healthcare and general science stream can improve our foreign
exchange inflows apart from giving employment to large number of Indian youths,
which in turn increase the consumption levels leading to higher requirement of
goods and services leading to further growth in jobs for youth.
Higher job creation and higher income levels combined with higher
consumption levels will lead to increased tax collections and need of lower
subsidy requirements. This will automatically improve the fiscal position of
Governments both at Centre and State level.
It is high time that Governments both at Centre and State level
along-with responsible citizens awaken to make our country much better than
what we are today by treating the expenditure on promoting healthcare and
general stream educational infrastructure as a capital one instead of a revenue
one, for its enduring nature of long-term benefits.
Contd.
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