A report in today's Times of India states that non-communicable diseases (NCD) cause more deaths than communicable diseases. As per latest data, in India, 80% of the deaths in urban areas are due to NCDs like cancer, heart ailment, respiratory disease and diabetes and 60% of deaths in rural areas. Globally, 36 million deaths are due to NCDs contributing 63% of all deaths. In India, in 2004, 7.3 lakh deaths are due to cancer, 27 lakh due to cardiovascular. i.e 34 lakh deaths are only due to these two diseases. And India lost US$ 9 billion from heart disease, stroke and diabetes in 2005 which is a considerable amount.
It is not known about the causes for these NCDs, whether arising out of occupation or not. Heart diseases can be due to life style, struggle for existence and to have minimum requirements of food, cloth and shelter, good education for children and so on.
The number of deaths appear to be much more than industrial accidents and road accidents put together. This requires initiative by government to provide better facilities for health, transport, education. Also managements of industrial establishments can participate in community activities in the form corporate social responsibility by adopting localities and engaging the people in the area for their betterment.