Even as the government keeps going to the town tom-toming its 'hike' in health expenditure for the current financial year, India remains a poor performer in taking care of its people's health by not earmarking due share of its GDP for the purpose, compared to other world nations, especially the developed countries.

With the country having just celebrated yet another World Health Day, a close scrutiny of the statistics world over points out that the Central hike by 21.8 per cent this year from Rs 12545 crore of the previous year to Rs 15291 crore this year for health sector is still far from the desired.

While its competitor China spent 61 dollar per head on health and the Government contributed 22 dollar of it, in India only 27 dollar is spent on each citizen and the Government share is just 7 dollar. As per the WHO Health Statistics 2006, out of the total Government expenditure, only 3.9 per cent was meant for health. The Government spending in the total health expenditure was just 24.8 per cent while the rest 75.2 per cent was spent by the private sector.

While United States spent 5711 dollar per year on every citizen, with Government contributing 2546 dollar, Japan utilised 2662 dollars out of which 2158 dollars was spent by the Government. The US keeps its 15.2 per cent of GDP for health while Japan spends 7.9 per cent of its GDP. Germany spent 11.1 per cent of its GDP on health while France earmarked 10.1 per cent of GDP for the same. And India still is looking for just 2 per cent target in five years.

"Despite all the claims, still the healthcare priority is only on papers. Our average spending on health is just 1 per cent of our GDP, which not really encouraging," says a health consultant.

Interestingly, Indian healthcare industry with a net worth of around 30 billion dollar per year, contributed 5 per cent of its GDP. As it is growing by over 12 per cent annually, its share in GDP will go up to 6.5-7.2 per cent, according to a recent study by the FICCI.

"As at least India watchers would know we have launched the National Rural Health Mission and decided to increase spending on health from 0.9 per cent of the GDP to 2-3 per cent over a period of 5 years," health minister Anbumani Ramadoss told a conference recently.

Although India accounts for 16.5 per cent of the global population, it contributes to a fifth of the world's share of diseases; a third of the diarrhoeal diseases, TB, Respiratory and other infections and parasitic infestations as well as perinatal conditions; a quarter of maternal conditions, a fifth of nutritional deficiencies, diabetes and the second largest number of HIV/ AIDS cases after South Africa, according to the data available with the Ministry.

Even countries like Bangladesh spent 3.4 per cent of its GDP for healthcare. It was 2.4 per cent in Pakistan and 3.5 per cent in Sri Lanka, as per the WHO report.

The average spending on health during the 1990 was just 0.35 per cent of the GDP. The established per capita spending is around Rs 320 per year with the major input from private households (75%). State governments contribute 15.2 per cent, the central government 5.2 per cent, third-party insurance and employers 3.3 per cent, and municipal government and foreign donors about 1.3 per cent. It remained around 0.43 per cent of the GDP from 1980-85. In the new millennium, it improved to around 1 per cent of the GDP, according to the statistics.