Assam to Guarantee Right to Health

Sruti Bandyopadhyay

Assam became the first state in the country to introduce a bill guaranteeing the right to health and well-being. The state government tabled the Assam Public Health Bill, 2010, in the assembly on March 12, 2010. The bill, will be put to vote on March 31.

The bill proposes to make it compulsory for both government and private hospitals to provide free healthcare services and maintain appropriate protocol of treatment for the first 24 hours to an emergency patient. Whether the state has the capacity to fulfil these promises may be debatable, it is certainly true that Assam has a long way in achieving this target.

We highlight the positional matrix of Assam related to health sector in the following graphs. (Figures are taken from lok sabha website).









Sruti Bandyopadhyay is a Research Associate with Accountability Initiative