Formulation of a nationally applicable, socially acceptable and epidemiologically effective NTP for India involved use of a wide range of principles of the discipline of community health. These principles can also be very profitably applied in the formulation of nationwide programmes to deal with other major community problems. Government commitment to strengthening rural health services in India by using multi-purpose health workers and by employing community health volunteers has further strengthened the case for adopting the approach developed for formulating the NTP on a much wider scale. This approach also gets further endorsement from the concept of primary health care contained in the Alma-Ata Declaration.