The Health & Family Welfare Department of the State Government has been vested with the responsibility of maintaining and developing the health care system in West Bengal. Public health and sanitation; hospitals and dispensaries is at the serial number 6 of the State List of Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution and hence the exclusive responsibility for the above mentioned issues is with the state. State provides financial and managerial support to the basic health infrastructure, while the private sector predominantly provides the ambulatory care services..

Since the last 50 years, there has been a paradigm shift in country's health care infrastructure from a mainly urban and clinic based to the creation of preventive and rehabilitative services by building up the primary, secondary and tertiary care institutions and to link them through appropriate referral systems.

About 80-90% of Government services were free compared to only 7% of services in the private sector.