Delhi Polls: Allocate 2.5% of GDP to Health, Demands JSA’s People’s Health Manifesto

New Delhi: Ahead of the voting for the Delhi Assembly elections on February 5, 2025, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA), Delhi, after a wide consultative process, has released a People’s Health Manifesto, demanding more government expenditure on public health, regulation of the private sector, free and accessible health services to every citizen of the national capital. It has as appealed to all political progressive parties to include these demands in their election manifestos.

The key demands flagged in the People’s Health Manifesto include:

● Ensure provision of comprehensive, quality, accessible health services to every individual, free of personal payments.

● Delhi Health Act, which has been in the pipeline for quite some time, must be brought in public domain and incorporate comprehensive regulation of the private sector, including rate regulation and capping the profit margins on consumables.

● All forms of privatisation of Public Health Services should be immediately stopped and various types of ‘Public Private Partnerships (PPPs)’ which weaken public health services should be eliminated.

● Public health expenditure should be increased through general taxation to 2.5% of GSDP in the short term, to be increased eventually to 3.5%.

● A key step in strengthening the health workforce is filling up vacancies of various cadres of health personnel and ensuring better working conditions. All the vacant posts need to be filled urgently, with special emphasis on nurses and various frontline workers, including Domestic Breeding Checkers, sanitation workers, Aanganwadi Workers, ASHAs, supervisors and field workers etc. The cadre of ASHA needs to be expanded as required for full coverage of the slum and low-income population.

● Delhi State Nursing Cell must be made functional to give nurses their own administration independent of doctors. Public health nurse recruitment needs to be revived to strengthen public health services in the community.

● All workers in public health facilities should be regularised and same-wage-for-similar-work clause under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Central Rules should be strictly implemented with adherence to staffing norms.

● Ensure the implementation of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act 2013 across the health system.

● All Gig workers, domestic help, street vendors, waste pickers, sanitation workers must be brought under the ESI.

● In order to cater to at least a third of Delhi’s population, the state needs around 4,000 Mohalla Clinics or Urban Sub-Centres, ten times more than those currently functioning.

● All essential quality generic medicines and diagnostics services should be made available free of cost at all public facilities. Mechanisms must be in place to ensure that there are no stockouts of TB and HIV drugs at state level

● A participatory system of community-based monitoring, grievance redressal and planning needs to be implemented.

“Healthcare in Delhi is plagued by inequities rooted in social determinants like religion, poverty, caste, and gender. Queer and transgender persons face added discrimination. These barriers prevent marginalised groups from accessing even basic healthcare services. We envision a people-friendly, public health-oriented system that prioritises equity and community-driven solutions,” said Jyotsna Singh, co-convener of JSA Delhi.

The manifesto also calls for halting harmful projects, such as the proposed Waste-to-Energy plant in Bawana, until proper environmental impact assessments are conducted.