Union Minister for Urban Development, Poverty Alleviation and Information and Broadcasting M. Venkaiah Naidu called for the Private Sector's proactive participation with the government in providing health care services to the people of the country.<br/><br/>Speaking after inaugurating a 350-bedded private hospital in Ongole town of Andhra Pradesh today, he said the National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 advocates a positive and proactive engagement with the private sector to fill a critical gap in extending health care to a billion plus population. <br/>Mr. Venkaiah Naidu said that the country is spending about 4.2 per cent of the GDP for providing healthcare while the developed nations are spending around 18 per cent of their GDP.<br/><br/>Emphasising that India's spent on health sector is much lesser than even some of the developing nations, the Union Minister said that the country has to face a lot of challenges in health care since Independence having low doctor-patient ratio, low patient-bed ratio, dearth of medical colleges and trained doctors, lack of penetration of health services, lower spends on rural health care, inadequate disease prevention mechanism, malnutrition and sanitation.<br/><br/>He said presently there is only one doctor per 1700 population in the country, while as per WHO norms it should be 1:1000 adding that India is presently having only 6.5 lakh doctors though it actually needs 10.5 lakh doctors. He pointed that a High level Committee of NITI Aayog has recommended for setting up of 187 more medical colleges in the country by 2022.<br/><br/>Stating that life style diseases are on the rise because of lack of adequate physical exercise, change in dietary habits and unnecessary stress in day to day life, the Union Minister advised physical exercise. Emphasizing on cycling to work as is practiced in many developed countries and South East Asian countries, he said his Ministry is doing its bit in the form of laying cycling tracks in cities wherever possible.