'Education, health sector closest to my heart', says Singh

PM-EDUCATION

New Delhi, Nov 8 (PTI) Over 40 years after the country
set a target of increasing spending on education to six per
cent of GDP, Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh on Sunday
hoped that this would be achieved in the next couple of years.

"It is my sincere hope that in the next couple of years
we can get public sector involvement and investment in
education to six per cent of our GDP and also public sector
investment in health sector... from about 1.5 per cent to
2-2.5 per cent of GDP," he said at the 25th edition of the
India Economic Summit that is being attended by industry
captains from world over.
Replying to a question on what were the two issues that
were close to his heart, Singh said: "Of all the programme
areas, the closest to my heart are education and health
sector. We should have done a lot more on these two areas. We
were late in this process."
The Kothari Committee on Education had, in its report in
1966, proposed stepping up public spending on education to six
per cent of GDP within a decade.
In the budget estimates of 2007-08, the country's spend
on education was only 3.67 per cent of the Gross Domestic
Product. PTI TEAM
SDE


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