Health Budget: On 1 February 2023, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the country’s general budget. She will become the first woman Finance Minister of the country on that day, who has presented India’s budget 5 times in the Parliament of the country. For the last two years, the government is paying special attention to the health sector in the budget. The outbreak of Coronavirus is still not completely over. In such a situation, it is expected that the government will present better schemes. In the last five years, there has been a continuous change in the expenditure being made by the government regarding health. Let’s take a look.

Expenditure increased in 2022-23 as compared to 2021-22

Nirmala Sitharaman allocated Rs 86,200 crore to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in Budget 2022-23, which is 16 percent more than Rs 73,931 crore in 2021-22, also announced the National Tele Mental Health Program Key and launched an open platform for National Digital.

When the coronavirus killed the entry

When the Indian government was presenting the country’s general budget on 1 February 2020, the first cases of coronavirus in India were reported three days before that. On 27 January 2020, symptoms of corona were seen in a 20-year-old woman in Kerala. Then i.e. in 2020-21, the Health Ministry had received Rs 67,112 crore in the budget from the Centre. On the other hand, if we talk about the budget fixed for the health sector in 2019-20, then Rs 63,538 crore was given by the government. This amount was more than his previous year. The government had planned to spend Rs 55,949 crore in the 2018-19 budget.

Estimates of 20% increase in this year’s budget

If experts are to be believed, the government may increase the health ministry by 20-30 per cent compared to the previous budget to deal with various sectors including insurance, vaccines, technology and research and development (R&D). The National Health Policy of 2017 set a target for government spending on health, with both the Center and states spending 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) to be achieved by 2025. It hovered between 1.2% to 1.4% in the period 2014-20. The Covid pandemic has helped it grow to 1.8% in 2020-21 and 2.1% for 2021-22. Now it has to be seen whether the government is able to meet the target this time or postpones it for the next budget.

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