Despite progress in healthcare infrastructure and policy reforms, India continues to face critical challenges in the primary healthcare sector. Discuss. (Answer in 250 words)

Primary Healthcare Sector Primary India's demographic dividend by preventing escalation of a disease into higher risks form, helping reduce expenditure of government and citizen. Technological Intervention - Financial Penetration (e.g) e-government, Increased Healthcare Reduced out-of-pocket (97%) as per NHA (e.g) Ayushman Bharat, Generic Medicine, Ayurveda Mandira

Critical challenges in Primary Healthcare (1) Lack of death (e.g) to rural and remote areas, especially tribals (2) Higher funds for Tertiary and Secondary - neglecting preventive care (e.g) Ayushman Bharat (3) Inequality (e.g) interstate disparity (e.g) Punjab vs Bihar (4) Lack of awareness - of symptoms during early onset of diseases (5) lack of staff - for outreach people, for identification of diseases at early stage (6) Home Remedies - referred with naive methods leading to escalation of severity

of disease. Measures - Lifestyle changes - promoting preventive care (e.g) Nutrition Life - Use of technology (e.g) Tele-MAMTA for addressing health issues at early stage - Groundlevel cost (e.g) Anganwadi workers - Higher awareness - by civil society groups (e.g) SMILE Foundation - Higher immunization - preventing onset of diseases Thus need is for promoting preventive care and early identification by community involvement (e.g) Mahalla Clinics Punjab for healthy and prosperous India by 2047