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Budget allocation way below health needs, say docs
Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has labeled the budget allocation for health way below what was needed.
Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has labeled the budget allocation for health way below what was needed.
Reacting to the health budget, IDPD president Dr Arun Mitra said that the allocation to health is far away from meeting the people’s health needs.
“The allocation for health is only ₹ 89,287 cores rupees out of a total budget of ₹ 48.21 lakh crore rupees. This means health has been allocated only 1.8% of the total budget. If we calculate the total amount of budget for our population of 140 crore, it comes to be only ₹638 per person,” he said.
He highlighted that India was among the lowest in health indicators.
“This is a cruel joke with the people as we are among the lowest in the health indicators and our public health spending is also among the lowest in the world.”
IDPD General Secretary Dr Shakeel Ur Rahman, said that the government’s claim that they have increased the health budget by 13% is a bundle of lies. The budget allotment last year on health was ₹88,956 crore, later revised to ₹79,221 crore. They are calculating the increase from the revised budget while they have not mentioned any date of this revision bringing down the allocation to health. Going by the previous experience there is every likelihood that this year too, the budget will be reduced after revision. Already 5.5 crore people are pushed to poverty because of out-of-pocket expenditure on health every year.
“This shows the government’s total apathy towards health of the people and push towards further corporatisation of healthcare.”
