Wednesday, April 13 2005 20:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chandigarh: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (Apr 13, 2005) cautioned against "excessive privatisation" in the health care sector saying it could be dangerous for the country as it would lead to creation of two worlds.

"With excessive privatisation, we are in the danger of creating two worlds. One, which is getting high-class medical care and the other not. We must never allow to happen this," he said while delivering the convocation address at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh.

Singh, however, said he was not against the involvement of the private sector in the health care.

The Prime Minister stressed the need for further strengthening public institutions and said modern medical research should reach to interiors of rural areas.

Singh said that both in economics and in medicine it was easy to get lost in the rarefied atmosphere of high-flown research and forget ground realities of the nation.

"A not so uncommon perception among the lay public is that institutes running on public money end up being ivory towers. To a limited extent, this perception is not correct," he said.

Noting that nations do not become great only by virtue of progress, he said, "Nations become great only when the large mass of people are allowed to eat at the table of economic success."

"That is possible only if we have a population that is healthy, both physically and mentally. We cannot aspire to become a super-power some day if our population remains unhealthy," he said.