Meaning of Infrastructure
Infrastructure refers to all such activities services and facilities which are needed to provide different kind of service in an economy.
Types of infrastructure
1. Economic infrastructure
2. Social infrastructure
Economic infrastructure
So it is associated with energy, transportation and communication. These services are important to promote economic activities such as production and trade of goods and services.
Social Infrastructure
So, it is associated with education health and housing. This type of infrastructure is consisting of provision of all those services which improves the quality of human resources. Social infrastructure include healthcare (hospitals), education (schools and universities).
Importance of infrastructure
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Facilitates functioning of the economy |
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2. |
Agriculture development |
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3. |
Economic development |
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Better quality of life: |
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Provide employment: |
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Facilitates outsourcing |
Facilitates functioning of the economy
The functioning of economy depends on Infrastructural facilities. agriculture, industry, and services sector depends heavily on infrastructure facilities for their growth ..
Agriculture development :
The development of agriculture depends on the infrastructural facilities (roadways, railways, and shipping) for speedy and large-scale transport of seeds, pesticides , etc…
Economic development
Rastructure contributes to Economic development of a country both by increasing the productivity of the factors of production.
Better quality of life:
Infrastructure leads to better quality of life improvement in water supply and sanitation have a and the quality of transport and communication infrastructure can affect access to health care.
Provide employment:
Infrastructure helps in generating employment. Many peoples get employment in infrastructure projects Like construction of roads, railwyas, electric plants etc..
Facilitates outsourcing:
With an advance infrastructure facilities, is able to reap benefits from the outsourcing work. India is emerging as a global destination for BPO’s and KPO’s etc.. due to IIT support system and sound infrastructure .
The state of infrastructure in India
India invests approximate 5 percent of its GDP on infrastructure, which is far below than that of china and Indonesia.
With government, private sector in partnership with the public sector is also playing a very important role in the infrastructure development.
India needs to develop its infrastructure specially in the area of rural energy requirement, water, basic amenities and sanitation. Despite of so much technological progress, women of rural India are still using bio fuels to meet their daily energy requirement.About 90% of the rural households use bio fuels for cooking. And if we talk about Tap water, its availability is limited to only 24% rural households also about 76% of the population drinks water from open resources such as wells, ponds, etc. Access to improved sanitation in rural areas was only 20%.
Meaning of Energy
Energy is an important input for most of the production processes and consumption activities. It plays an significant role in development process of a nation.
It is essential for industries, agriculture and related areas like production and transportation of fertilizers, pesticides and farm equipment. It is also required in house for cooking, household lighting and heating etc.
Sources of Energy
There are two important sources of energy
1. Commercial Energy
2. Non Commercial Energy
So let us understand both one by one
Commercial Energy
Commercial Energy are those sources of energy which commands a price and the user have to pay for them, as they bought and sold in the market. For eg, Coal, petroleum and electricity
Commercial sources of energy are generally exhaustible in nature.
Non-Commercial Energy
Non-Commercial energy consists of those sources of energy which generally do not command for a price.
For example, Fire wood, agricultural waste and dried dung.
They are found in nature free of cost. Non-commercial sources are generally renewable in nature.
More than 60% of Indian household depend on traditional sources of energy for meeting their regular cooking and heating needs.
Energy can be classified into two categories according to the sources from which it is derived
Conventional sources of energy
Conventional sources of energy refers to the source of energy which are in use since long and can be stored. For example coal and oil. Such sources are non-renewable resources of energy. Both commercial and non-commercial sources of energy are known as conventional source of energy.
Non-conventional sources of energy
Nonconventional sources of energy refers to the sources of energy which have come into use only recently. For example solar energy, wind energy, geo thermal energy, biogas and tidal power. Such sources of renewable resources of energy.
India has almost unlimited potential for producing these types of energy if some appropriate cost-effective technologies, that are already available, are used. These type of energy resources are exhaustible. Note India is fifth largest producer of wind energy
Consumption Pattern of Commercial Energy in India
Commercial energy consumption makes up about 74% of the total energy consumed in India. This includes coal with the largest share of 54%, followed by oil at 33%, natural gas at 9% and hydro energy at 3%.
Non-commercial energy sources account for over 26% of the total energy consumption.
India depends on imports for crude and petroleum products, which is likely to grow rapidly in the near future.
Sectoral Pattern of Consumption of Commercial Energy
Question What is the significance of ‘energy’? differentiate between commercial and non commercial source of energy.
Answer: energy is an important input for most of the oriosuction processes and consumption activities. It play a important role in the development of an economy.
There exist a positive correlation between economic growth and demand for energy. It happens because growth is an index of increasing productive activity, which requires larger quantity of energy.
In india, energy is used on a large sacle in agriculture and related areas, like productionand transportation of fertilizers, pesticides and farm equipments.
Energy is required in houses for cooking, household lighting and heating
Difference between the commercial energy and non commercial energy
Commercial energy
Commercial energy refer to those source of energy which command a price and the user have to pay a price for them.
Foeeg: coal and electricity
Meaning of Power (Electricity)
The most visible form of energy, which is often identified with progress in modern civilization, is power, commonly called electricity. It is a critical component of infrastructure that determines the economic development of a country.
The growth rate of demand for power is generally higher than the GDP growth rate. In order to meet this increasing power requirement huge amount of investment is regularly being made on the development of power projects
Sources of Power Generation
So basically there are three sources of power generation
Thermal power
When power is generated out of coal oil and natural gas it is referred as thermal power. It is a major source of electricity and accounted for almost 65% generation capacity in India by 2016.
Hydro-electric power
When power is generated from the water of fast-flowing rivers or high dams is referred as hydro-electric power.
It is the cheapest among all sources also it has no pollution agent and it is a renewable source of energy.
Nuclear or atomic power
When power generated from the radioactive elements like Uranium, Thorium and Plutonium is referred as nuclear or atomic power. Power generation from nuclear or atomic power has started from 1970-71. It is the next most up-to-date source of power generation. Atomic energy has environmental advantages.
Challenges in the Power Sector
India’s installed capacity to generate electricity is, not sufficient and to feed an annual economic growth of 7-8%. At present, India is able to add only 20,000 MW a year.
Underutilization of installed capacity-
The installed capacity is underutilized. During excess demand the operational efficiency of power projects is reflected by “Plant Load Factor” PLF. In India, the PLF is very poor and inadequate attention is paid to improve it.
Poor performance of state electricity board (SEB’s)- state electricity board(SEB’s)
State Electricity Boards (SEBs) which distribute electricity, incur losses which exceeds by Rs.500 billion due to transmission and loss in distribution, wrong pricing, ; electricity is also stolen in different areas and other inefficiencies.
Lack of Public Cooperation-
There is general public unrest due to high power tariffs and prolonged power cuts in different parts of the country
Shortage of inputs-
Thermal power plants which are the mainstay of India’s power sector, are facing shortage of raw material and coal supplies.
Limited role of Private and Foreign Entrepreneurs-
Private sector power generators and foreign Entrepreneurs are yet to invest and yet to play their role in major way.
Meaning of Health
Health is the state of complete physical, social and mental well being not the absence of disease.
India’s Infrastructure - tier system of health infrastructure
1. Primary health care
2. Secondary health care
3. Tertiary health care
Primary health care:
Primary health Care: Primary Health Care includes:
Education concerning prevailing health problems and methods of identifying, prevailing and controlling them; Promotion of food supply and proper nutrition and adequate supply of water and basic sanitation;
Maternal and child health care;
Promotion of mental health and provision of essential drugs.
Primary Health Centres (PHC), community Health Centres (CHC) and sub –centres (SC) have been set up in villages and small towns. They are generally manned by a single doctor, a nurse and a limited quantity of medicines. When the condition of a patient is not managed by such centres, they are referred to secondary or tertiary hospitals.
Secondary health care:
my big clinic)
Secondary Health Care: Hospitals which have better facilities for surgery, Electro Cardio Gram (ECG), are called secondary health care institutions. They provide primary health care and also provide better healthcare facilities. They are mostly located in district headquarters and in big towns.
tertiary health care:
Tertiary Health Care: Hospitals which have advanced level equipment and medicines and undertake all the complicated health problems, which could not be managed by primary and secondary hospitals, come under ‘Tertiary Health Care’. The tertiary sector also includes many premier institutes which not only impart quality medical education and conduct research, but also provide specialised health care. For example, AIIMS in Delhi.
Role of private sector
In recent times, the role of private sector, in providing health services as follows:
More than 70 per cent of the hospitals in India are run by the private sector.
Private Sector control nearly 40percentage of beds available in the hospitals.
Nearly 60 per cent of dispensaries are run by the private sector.
Private sector provides healthcare to 80 per cent of out –patients and 46 per cent of in –patients.
Private sector plays a important role in medical education and training, and medical technology etc…In 2001 -02, there were more than 13 lakh medical enterprises, employing 22 lakh people.
ISM (Indian system of medicine)
Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM)
India has its own well developed alternate system of health care, namely; AYUSH consisting of six systems – Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, Naturopathy and Homeopathy.
At present there are 3,004 ISM hospitals, 23,028 dispensaries and as many as 6,11,431 registered practitioners in India..
ISM has huge potential and can solve a large part of our health care problems because they are effective, safe and expensive.
Indicators of health and health infrastructure
It is a well –known fact that India is the second largest populated country in the world. But the health status of a great majority of the people is far satisfactory as compared to China and other developed countries.
Expenditure on health sector is just 4.8 per cent of total GDP. As it is extremely low as compared to other developed and developing countries.
India has about 17 per cent of the world’s population but it bears a frightening 20 per cent of the Global burden of diseases (GBD).
GBD is an indicator used by experts to measure the number of people dying prematurely due to a particular disease as well as the number of years spent by them in a state of disability owing to the disease. In India, more than half of GDB is accounted due to communicable diseases, such as diarrhea, malaria etc….
Every year, around 5 lakh children die of water –borne diseases.
Rural -urban divide (rich-poor divide)
Women health care
Women constitute about half the total population in India. They suffer many disadvantages as compared to men, in the areas of education, participation in economic activities and health care.
The child sex ratio declined from 945 in 1991 t0 927 in 2001. It indicates growing incidence of female foeticide in the country.
Around 3 lakh girls below 15 years of age are not only married but have already borne children at least once.
More than 50 per cent of married women between the age group of 15 and 49 have anaemia and nutritional anaemia, caused by iron deficiency, which has contributed tp 19 per cent of maternal deaths.
Abortions are also a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality in India.
Answer: The child sex ratio declined from 945 in 1991 t0 927 in 2001. It indicates growing incidence of female foeticide in the country.
Around 3 lakh girls below 15 years of age are not only married but have already borne children at least once.
More than 50 per cent of married women between the age group of 15 and 49 have anaemia and nutritional anaemia, caused by iron deficiency, which has contributed tp 19 per cent of maternal deaths.
Abortions are also a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality in India.
Question. what are the indicator of health status of country?
Answer: Indications of Health Infrastructure
It is a well –known fact that India is the second largest populated country in the world. But the health status of a great majority of the people is far satisfactory as compared to China and other developed countries.
Expenditure on health sector is just 4.8 per cent of total GDP. As it is extremely low as compared to other developed and developing countries.
India has about 17 per cent of the world’s population but it bears a frightening 20 per cent of the Global burden of diseases (GBD).
GBD is an indicator used by experts to measure the number of people dying prematurely due to a particular disease as well as the number of years spent by them in a state of disability owing to the disease. In India, more than half of GDB is accounted due to communicable diseases, such as diarrhea, malaria etc….
Every year, around 5 lakh children die of water –borne diseases.
Malnurtion and inadequate supply of vaccine lead to the death of 2.2 millon children every year.
Question. Discuss the role of private sector in providing health services in india..
Answer: Role of private sector
More than 70 per cent of the hospitals in India are run by the private sector.
Private Sector control nearly 40percentage of beds available in the hospitals.
Nearly 60 per cent of dispensaries are run by the private sector.
Private sector provides healthcare to 80 per cent of out –patients and 46 per cent of in –patients.
Private sector plays a important role in medical education and training, and medical technology etc…In 2001 -02, there were more than 13 lakh medical enterprises, employing 22 lakh people.
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