NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION NHRC INDIA Chapter 6 RIGHT TO HEALTH 6.1 India has achieved significant economic growth over the past decades but the progress on health has not been proportionate. As quoted in Amartya Sen in his book ‘An Uncertain Glory- India and its Contradictions’ cited two major interrelated problems faced by health care in India: first, its massive inadequacy and second, the near absence of public discussion of this inadequacy. According to the India State-level Disease Burden Initiative Report (2016) by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Life expectancy at birth improved in India from 59.7 years in 1990 to 70.3 years in 2016 for females, and from 58.3 years to 66.9 years for males. Of the total disease burden in India, 61% was due to communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (termed infectious and associated diseases in this for simplicity) in 1990, which dropped to 33% in 2016. On the contrary, the contribution of most of the major non-communicable disease groups to the total disease burden has increased all over India including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, mental health and neurological disorders, cancers, musculoskeletal disorders, and chronic kidney disease. 6.2 In this context, provision of health services is one of the most important welfare responsibilities of the Government of India and the various state governments. It is relevant to mention here that the Indian Constitution has not included Right to Health care as a constitutional right, however, the Constitution of India has provisions regarding the right to health. The obligation of the State to ensure the creation and the sustaining of conditions congenial to good health is cast by the Constitutional directives contained in Articles 38, 39 (e) (f), 42, 47 and 48 A in Part IV of the Constitution of India. Further, the Supreme Court in its judgments has interpreted Article 21 (Fundamental right to life) and Article 47 of the Directive Principles of State Policy which mentions improving health of the citizens as one of the duties of the government to mean right to life as right to life with dignity, including access to basic health care as a right. 6.3 Since October 1993, the time that NHRC came into existence, the Commission has consistently taken the view that the Right to Life with dignity, enshrined in the Constitution, must result into the strengthening of measures to ensure that all people, and particularly 78 Annual Report 2017-2018