Health Manpower Planning, Production and Management: Report of the Expert Committee

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, government of India set up the Expert Committee for Health Manpower Planning, Production and Management in May, 1986. Its chair, Prof. J. S. Bajaj, was Professor of Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, at the time. The committee was constituted after the release of the National Policy on Education, 1986 – which, as the report notes, recognised the essential linkages between health and education for the first time.The committee was assigned the task of assessing the planning, production and management of ‘allied health professionals’ needed at primary and intermediate levels of health care. It was asked to make recommendation for a wide range of areas, such as health-related courses to be incorporated into pre-vocational education;, educational infrastructure to create appropriate healthcare personnel; modifications in the education and health systems to help establish essential interlinkages between the creation of health manpower and its deployment and utilisation; ways to safeguard the career prospects of various categories of health personnel at primary and intermediate levels through bridge courses for ‘horizontal mobility’ and ‘vertical progress’; and mechanisms to ensure the swift development of educational objectives, curricular contents and learning settings for the course of instruction.The report notes that strategies for intersectoral coordination between health and education have been lacking in the past, and previous goals and objectives have not translated into concrete plans of action. The report’s recommendations align with the objectives of the National Policy on Education, which advocates a “holistic approach to education and health.”