Budget 2023: Health continues to be on backburner, allocations increase by meagre 12%

FM Sitharaman has extended customs duty cut on imports of parts of mobile phones by one year.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has been allocated Rs 89, 155 crores in Union Budget FY24, marking a rise of a meagre 12.6 percent as compared to the revised Budget estimate for FY 23.

The Health Ministry received a 16 percent hike in last year's Budget. The health allocation hike of 12 percent this year is barely likely to cover the effects of inflation.

For the upcoming financial year, Rs 86,175 crore has been allocated to the department of health and family welfare while Rs 2,980 crore has been allocated to the department of health research.

In the ongoing fiscal, the budget spent on the department of health and family welfare is Rs 76,370 crore while Rs 2,775 crore had been marked for the department of health research.

Among the centrally sponsored schemes, the two schemes that have got a considerable hike in the Budget are the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PMABHIM) and the National Digital Health Mission; a status quo has been maintained for most other schemes.

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Marginal gain for some schemes

The PMABHIM scheme, under which the government aims to fill critical gaps in health infrastructure, surveillance, and health research, has been allocated Rs 645.68 crore in the upcoming financial year; the revised Budget estimate for the scheme this year was Rs 281.86 crore.

The 2023 Union Budget, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has also proposed Rs 341 crore for the National Digital Health Mission, more than doubling the FY23 spent, which stood at Rs 140 crore.

A key scheme to provide healthcare services through public sector hospitals in India, the National Health Mission, however, maintains status quo; it received Rs 29,085 crore -- just a little more than the revised Budget of Rs 28, 974 crore in FY23 for the scheme.

The Centre’s flagship health insurance scheme, Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana, under which nearly 50 crore Indians receive cashless hospitalization benefit of up to Rs 5 lakh, will be allocated Rs 7,200 crore in FY24, marginally higher than the current spend of Rs 6,412.

The Government is, however, set to cut down expenses meant for projects related to epidemic research, including expenditure meant for setting up a nationwide network of laboratories for managing epidemics and national calamities and development of tools or support to prevent outbreaks of epidemics.

By not allocating any fund for COVID-19 vaccination, Budget 2023 has also indicated that the booster doses against coronavirus will now only be availed through the private sector.

In her Budget speech 2023, FM Sitharaman announced that research and development in the pharmaceutical sector will receive a government push. She further announced that 157 new nursing colleges will be set up, some Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) labs will become accessible for private researchers, and a project to eliminate sickle cell anemia, a blood disorder common among tribal people, will be launched by 2047.

No big-ticket announcements, no major hike

Experts are dubbing Budget 2023 a disappointing one for the health sector.

“I would call it the most boring Budget for the health sector,” said former Union health secretary Sujatha K Rao. “None of the health schemes have received any significant hike in allocation and it indicates that year-on-year health is getting neglected despite a pandemic like COVID-19 having shaken the whole system badly.”

The most disheartening bit, she said, was that the PMJAY scheme was not being expanded to include the “missing middle” -- people who are outside any health insurance coverage -- to bring them under financial risk protection. There was no major push toward strengthening the healthcare infrastructure of the primary healthcare system either, Rao added.

“The government is not taking any move to implement components in its own National Health Policy declared in 2017 that seemed futuristic,” Rao said.