TB and its control are vitally important to the health of this country. The NTP was reviewed by a team of national and international experts in 1992. The team concluded that the earlier programme failed to make an epidemiological impact as the stress was on case finding and the outcome of patients put on treatment was not systematically monitored. Low priority to the programme, lack of regular supply of drugs, and undue stress on radiography rather than sputum microscopy were identified as major problems, amongst several others. The RNTCP, which is based on the DOTS strategy, was designed to overcome these shortcomings. The RNTCP was pilot tested in 1993 and currently over 425 million of the population in 188 districts is covered under the programme. Cohort analysis of the patients put on treatment in the latest quarter has shown an average success rate of 83% and 3 month sputum conversion rate of 88%. Quality of diagnosis has remained excellent.