Economy

Social Services

Hospitals

During the last 40 years there has been tremendous increase in the public health facilities, both preventive and curative.  In 1989, the public health institutions numbered 899, including a state hospital,12 district hospitals,189 primary health centres, besides a number of allopathic and Ayurvedic dispensaries and specialized medical institutions. To meet the shortage of doctors, a medical college also started functioning in 1967, which now has post-graduate teaching facilities in some branches.

Death rate has come down by 70 percent due to various public health measures.  The incidence of venereal disease, which was about 17 percent in 1951, came down to 2 percent in 1989. Malaria and small pox have been eradicated. The T.B. control programme has been a great success. People have taken enthusiastically to the family planning programme and its interesting feature is that women have out-numbered men in its acceptance.

Education

As against nearly 200 Educational Institutions, mostly Primary Schools in 1948, the state had 9,112 educational institutions including 38 colleges, 932 higher secondary and high schools, 1,068 middle schools and 7,074 primary schools in 1989. The enrollment in these institutions was about 1,122,000 or about 26 percent of the entire state population.  The literacy percentage which was only 6.7 percent in 1951 and 31.32 percent in 1971, rose to 42.48 percent in 1989 and in 1991 it was 63.54 percent. The state got its first university in 1971.Then two more universities, one for Agriculture and the other for Horticulture and Forestry have come up at Palampur and Solan respectively. 

Water supply

Drinking water supply poses a big problem in Himachal.  In the absence of wells due to high altitude terrain, drinking water is mainly obtained from springs and streams.  Being unhygienic, it contributes to pollutions and spread of disease like hill dysentery. The village being sparsely populated and distantly located, the arrangement of clean drinking water poses the problem of high costs.  In 1948, excepting four towns, no other habitation in the Himachal had piped water supply. By 1989, drinking water through pipes was made available in about 15,000 villages covering about 75 percent of the population.