Making mental health central

In a highly competitive world with severe inequities, maintaining good mental health is turning into a major challenge.

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The treatment access gap for mental health problems in India is an estimated 70% to 92%, and about 230 million people live with mental disorders, ranging from anxiety and depression to psychoses and other serious conditions. Given the low ratio of psychiatrists to population—0.75 per | lakh against the World Health Or-ganisation norm of 3—and their concentration in cities, the national response to this growing public health crisis needs to urgently scale up. It is welcome that PM Modi has called for mainstreaming of mental health on the occasion of World Mental Health Day. This is an opportune moment to review the National Mental Health Programme with its district-level framework and the workings of the National Mental Healthcare Act, 2017; the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016; Tele MANAS, the telehealth pro-gramme for care seekers; and the National Suicide Prevention Strategy. India’s public health framewo