As the Covid-19 pandemic exposed a dire need for additional support to the public healthcare system in India and abroad, the Centre is now planning to set up a fresh health fund in the upcoming Union Budget, a Business Standard report suggests.
The fund, if created, would fall under the ‘Pradhan Mantri' banner and would get contributions from both the Centre and states.
Last year's Economic Survey states that expenditure on health care as a percentage of total expenditure was reported at 5.3 per cent in the last two fiscal years. To that end, government officials told BS that this fund would majorly focus on primary healthcare and promote existing government healthcare schemes like Ayushman Bharat. Primary healthcare accounted for 52.1 per cent of India’s public expenditure on health as per the National Health Estimates, 2016-17.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced an outlay of about Rs 69,000 crore for the healthcare sector during the 2020 Union Budget, up from the Rs 62,659.12 in the year before that.
Even as the spend is increasing every year, India is yet to catch up in healthcare spending as the government's expenditure on health was 1.5 per cent of GDP in 2018-19. This is lower than other emerging countries and significantly behind some European countries where the spend is 7-8 per cent.
(Published 25 January 2021, 09:21 IST)
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