With the advent of new Millennium, when the whole world is looking towards India as an emerging superpower, it’s high time for the policy makers to rethink and reshape the technical, economical as well as administrative policies employed in order to achieve a commendable position in the World map. With policies like the Make in India initiative, where the Government is welcoming Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in various sectors, now is the time to assess our current state and bridge the gap between the current and preferable positions. On pen and paper, this looks as a bright proposition but in actual practice we need to march many miles ahead in order to reach to a platform from where we can even think about a healthy competition. India in general and a state like Odisha in particular, when we look at the news about the healthcare initiatives, we found it quite pathetic with frequent stories of malnutrition, maternal & infant deaths, outbreak of contagious diseases like swine flu etc., prevailing social taboos towards treatments, unavailability of basic amenities, neglected hospital surroundings, inadequate infrastructural facilities, misbehaviour of doctors & staffs and may more. With all these in background, we tried to assess the perception of people towards the quality of health care in the state by using the famous SERVQUAL scale. As it is a general notion that the medical college hospitals provide better treatment than the general hospitals, we have taken the samples from one of the reputed government medical college hospitals in the state and captured the feedbacks of patients. The study revealed many areas which need to be improved in order to strengthen the health care infrastructure in the State. Based on the findings and feedbacks of the customers, we have recommended some measures for improvement.

KEY WORDS: Service, quality, healthcare, human capital