Health Care System J P NAIK (P,D): AN ALTERNATIVE SYSTEM OF HEALTH CARE SERVICE IN INDIA: SOME PROPOSALS, Allied Publishers, New Delhi, 1977, pp 81, Rs 10. IN recent years there has been considerable rethinking among social scientists and members of the medical profession on the relevance of tlic present health care set-up to the needs of the country. Several seminars have been organized to try and find out some alternative health care system that can suitably be applied to a country where 80 percent of the population lives in rural areas. In 1976 a seminar was organized jointly by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Indian Council of Social Science Research(IGSSR) wherein several workers presented their work involving innovations in health delivery system. Most of the work presented was of an experimental nature involving small communities and highly motivated persons behind the 'projects.5 The consensus emerged that the present health set-up needs considerable overhauling, and more and more stress will have to be laid on the use of non-professional, trained workers within the community for delivering health care. The book entitled An Alternative System of Health Care Service in India—Some Proposals contains four papers, all of, them dealing with some proposals or concepts of alternatives to tlie existing system, but not by way of concrete solutions. In his paper, "Alternative System of Health Care Services in India—Some General Considerations'5, J P Naik, member-secretary of IGSSR, has spelt out in great detail some broad principles on which alternative plans should be based. Before doing so, he has described in a fairly detailed manner the evolution of health service in India. Starting from the Bangalore Committee report (1946) he has gone on to pinpoint some of the basic issues that