Govt should spend more on health care: Nachiket Mor

Banks should have ambition to bring more people on Banking net

India is not spending enough on healthcare and the country needs to set tall targets on financial inclusion, said Nachiket Mor, chairman of the board of Care India and a member of the central board of the Reserve Bank of India.

Addressing a conference at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) annual regional meeting at Chennai on Tuesday, he pointed out that the US spends 16 per cent of the GDP on health care and China, four per cent. However, the amount India spends is a meagre 0.9 per cent.

“In the 12th Plan, we pushed the government to increase it (health care spend) to 1.85 per cent. But when we speak to the health ministry, they say it was not allocated,” said Mor. He added the government should take a bigger role in solving issues related to health care.

On financial inclusion, Mor said India needs to be ambitious. “Only 35 per cent of the citizens have got bank accounts and we are not able to take beyond a certain level in a country, where mobile reached to over one billion people.”

On the conference theme, ‘Conscious Competitiveness’, Mor said social responsibilities at times can also turn highly commercial success.

To buttress the point, he shared his 25-year experience in the banking industry. During his tenure at ICICI Bank, he was assigned treasury business by K V Kamath, chairman, ICICI Bank. “I decided not to focus on trading, but on small companies and small towns, which other bankers did not.”

It turned out to be a successful business. This is arguably a social cause, given the beneficiaries, and it proved to be commercially successful, too. “The treasury business used to report Rs 20 crore profitability, which was scaled up to Rs 800 crore,” said Mor.

Mor also quoted the example of the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX). It was decided to look at this as a social responsibility, but when it was sold, the returns were 40 times.  He pointed out that India has a large number of problems, and this means tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs. By finding solutions to these problems, entrepreneurs also grow.

Mor noted that the telecom sector could play a vital role in increasing reaching banking services to more people through mobile banking.