Budget 2022 | Big disappointment for health sector as fund allocation rises just 0.2%

No separate Budget has been allocated for COVID-19 vaccination for healthcare and front-line workers under the National Health Mission.

The healthcare sector in India came in for deep disappointment as the total budget allocated for it is only Rs 86,200 crore in the Union Budget 2022-23, just 0.2 % higher than the revised Budget in 2021-22.

The near-zero enhancement for the crucial social sector was criticised heavily as India, which grappled with a massive COVID-19 wave last summer, is still in the middle of the third wave of the pandemic, driven by the Omicron variant.

There was no major announcement for the sector in the Budget speech by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman either, except for a declaration to launch the national tele-mental health programme under which 23 centres of excellence are planned to be set up, led by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru.

A fine-print of the Budget document showed that the government has proposed to spend a total of Rs 15,163 crore in 2022-23 for various central sector schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suaraksha Yojana and national digital health mission, among others.

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No separate Budget, however, has been allocated for COVID-19 vaccination for healthcare and front-line workers under the National Health Mission.

On a positive note, the Budget for several autonomous institutes under the ministry such as AIIMS, New Delhi and PGI, Chandigarh, apart from many others has been marginally raised from Rs 8,782 crore to Rs 10,022 crore.

Also, for the government’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana—under which people from socially and economically backward sections are offered hospitalisation coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh for specified medical procedures and treatment, the Budget has been raised from Rs 3,199 crore to Rs 6,412 crore.

A thrust also appears to be given to the National Digital Health Mission which will receive a total of Rs 200 crore in the coming fiscal, as compared to 2021-22 when only Rs 75 crore was allocated to this initiative.

Chandrakant Lahariya, epidemiologist and an expert on health systems stressed that the health sector had far greater expectations this year from the Finance Minister considering that the people and the country suffered massively during the Delta wave of the pandemic in 2021.

“But in fact while the revised budget estimate for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 is almost the change the health budget proposed now is lesser if we adjust it for GDP growth and inflation rate. Overall, I would call it below expectation,” he said.

Former Union health secretary Sujatha K Rao said she was shell shocked at the neglect meted out to the sector, especially as the whole Economic Survey report 2021-22 has been written under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The last two years have been traumatic for us—so I was hoping a big focus on health this year but there seems nothing on offer to fix the dysfunctional health system in the country,” she opined.