Union Budget 2025 | Health sector sees relief on imported drugs, more cancer care centres and medical seats in colleges

New Delhi: From enhancing the number of medical seats by 10,000 in the next 12 months and having cancer care centres in district hospitals to duty relief on imported drugs for treating cancer and chronic diseases, the Union Budget offers several benefits for the health sector.

Presenting the budget on Saturday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed adding 10,000 additional seats in medical colleges in the next 12 months, towards the goal of adding 75,000 seats in the next five years.

The announcement comes a day after the Economic Survey flagged how a large number of Indian students are compelled to travel to countries like China, Ukraine, Russia and Bangladesh because half of the MBBS seats are too expensive for most of them.

With cancer cases on the rise, Sitharaman proposed setting up of day care cancer centres in all district hospitals in the next three years and allocated Rs 200 Centres for the task in 2025-26.

The minister also proposed slashing the duty of a large number of imported medicines. This includes 36 life-saving drugs and medicines used for the treatment, rare diseases and other severe chronic diseases, which will be “fully exempted” from basic customs duty.

She also proposed to add six such medicines to the list attracting concessional customs duty of 5%. Full exemption and concessional duty will also respectively apply on the bulk drugs for manufacture of the medicines receiving the relief.

Specified drugs and medicines under Patient Assistance Programmes run by pharmaceutical companies are fully exempt, provided the medicines are supplied free of cost to patients. The minister proposed to add 37 more medicines along with 13 new patient assistance programmes.

With the Centre bringing citizens in the age bracket of 70 years and above under the ambit of the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat programme, the allocation for the flagship scheme has been enhanced to Rs 9,406 crore from this year’s budgetary allocation of Rs 7,300 crore. The overall allocation for the Union Health Ministry has been raised by nearly 9.8%.

Other programmes that received a budgetary boost are Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission that received over Rs 4,700 crores – more than 26% jump than last year’s allocation - to strengthen the infrastructure.

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Union Budget 2025 | Nirmala Sitharaman, as Finance Minister, presented her record 8th Union Budget this time. While inflation has burnt a hole in the pockets of 'aam janata', the Modi govt gave income tax relief for those making up to Rs 12 lakh per year in salaried income. Track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analysis only on Deccan Herald. Also follow us on WhatsApp, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.