Saturday, April 9 2005 19:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi today (Apr 9, 2005) called the health sector a vital dimension of social justice and said that the Government was committed to increasing public investment on social sectors on a sustained basis.

"We are trying to bring health to the centre of political discourse. Health is not just a medical or an economic issue. In the final analysis, it is a vital dimension of social justice," she said in New Delhi, releasing a "Delhi Declaration", an outcome of a high-level international meeting of maternal, newborn and child health advocates and experts.

Gandhi said that while economic growth was important and must accelerate; the country's social sector challenges would demand more vigorous and more sustained public sector intervention.

The Government was committed to increasing public investment substantially in elementary education, health and family welfare, nutrition, women and child development and water supply and sanitation, she said adding, "The increases have to be continued over the next decade at least. I am confident that this will indeed be the case."

Gandhi said that the very essence of economic reforms was to sustain increasing levels of public investment in social infrastructure and in social security and welfare.

Delhi Declaration highlights a way forward for the achievement of significant reductions in maternal, newborn and child mortality.