Developing Chandigarh as a Smart City: Evaluation of Healthcare as a Parameter of Social Infrastructure

Urbanisation in the Indian landscape has primarily been a post-independence development and has been gaining momentum steadily over the decades. According to the Census of India 2011, around 31% of Indian population lives in urban areas and this number is estimated to reach 40% by 2031. This clearly demonstrates that India will be at the epicentre of urbanisation in the coming decades (Ahluwalia et al, 2014). However, with the sheer scale of urbanisation comes the spiralling pressure of swelling urban population on social infrastructure, the most affected being the healthcare system. The challenge that India faces today is the glaring gap between healthcare provision and patient burden. The present primary data based survey study aims to investigate the level of satisfaction of different socio-economic backgrounds about the availability and quality of healthcare and medical services which cater to the needs of the residents of Chandigarh as well as its surrounding regions. The study reveals that government intervention and policy plays an important role in proper facilitation of the healthcare services in both private and public healthcare facilities. This also highlights that the government needs to increase the share of public healthcare facilities as compared to private healthcare facilities to lessen the gap between the two and to improve patient satisfaction