Budget Action & ReactionNews

Budget reaction: Dr Swadeep Srivastava, Founder & CEO, HEAL Health Connect Solutions

Owing to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and the public health emergency created, a significant increase of 137 per cent in the healthcare budget was very much expected. The pandemic has taught us that there are no choices other than large scale public investment in building primary health centres, hospitals at the district and grassroots levels. The allocation of Rs 2.24 lakh crore for healthcare in the budget 2021-22 will be the hallmark as health and well-being are one of the key pillars of this year’s budget proposal. The government’s three focus areas in the health segment as mentioned by the finance minister were preventive, curative and well-being, which is the need of the hour. The allocation of ₹35,000 crores for COVID-19 vaccines is another big step to curb the rate of infection. The proposal in the budget for PM Atma Nirbhar Swastha Bharat with an outlay of ₹ 64,180 crore over six years in addition to the Centre’s National Health Mission programme is another visionary step to build the capacity of primary, secondary and tertiary level health care facilities, to handle new emerging diseases. The proposal to launch an improvised Mission Poshan 2.0, and to merge some of the other nutrition-related programmes to give this initiative a boost considering malnutrition as one of the primary concerns in India because of which many health-related indicators are still not improving, is another welcome move.

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