India has outlined its commitment to achieving universal health coverage and several states in India are rolling out strategies to support this aim. In 2011, Rajasthan implemented an ambitious universal access to medicines programme based on a centralized procurement and decentralized distribution model. In terms of the three dimensions of universal health coverage, the scheme has made significant positive strides within a short period of implementation. The key objectives of this paper are to assess the likely implications of providing universal access to essential medicines in Rajasthan, which has a population of 70 million. Primary field-level data were obtained from 112 public health-care facilities using multistage random sampling. National Sample Survey Organization data and health system data were also analysed. The per capita health expenditure during the pre-reform period was estimated to be ₹5.7 and is now close to ₹50. Availability of essential medicines was encouraging and utilization of public facilities had increased. With additional per capita annual investment of ₹43, the scheme has brought about several improvements in the delivery of essential services and increased utilization of public facilities in the state and, as a result, enhanced efficiency of the system. Although there was an attempt to convert the scheme into a targeted one with the change in government, strong resistance from the civil society resulted in such efforts being defeated and the universality of the scheme has been retained.

Background: The bidi industry in India is predominantly an unorganized sector. It continues to enjoy tax benefits, arguably, to protect bidi workers' interests and employment. Our objective was to study trends in employment and wage differentials in the bidi industry using nationally representative data.

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Indian healthcare system is dominated by private sector; its importance is growing with implementation of ‘Ayushman Bharat’, flagship programme of Indian government. Though 62% and 75% of inpatient and outpatient cases in India are treated in private sector, the information about the economy of private healthcare providers is very limited. To the author’s best knowledge, this is the first attempt to address the issue with empirical evidence for the private healthcare providers from a nationally representative survey data for India. Private healthcare sector is estimated to provide employment to 2.34 million persons annually and generate gross value added (GVA) of ₹473.3 billion. Treatment cost on an average is much high in private sector as compared to the public sector. But supply-side data show that average annual receipt per annum is six times higher than average operating cost per annum for unincorporated private healthcare providers in India, indicating underlying profit motive. Analysis of factor payments shows that 55% of GVA of unincorporated private hospitals is gross operating surplus (or profit), followed by emoluments paid to employees and workers (42%). These factors potentially cause over-charging in private sector. Context-specific and appropriate regulatory mechanisms are very much needed to ensure quality of services and control medical inflation.