According to Manpreet Sohal, CEO, Global Hospitals Mumbai & Hyderabad, the budget has announced a few initiatives in healthcare sector, some of the notable ones are the proposition of five new AIIMS is promising and we are glad that the government is stepping up the healthcare infrastructure in every state.
The government has also promised quality medical facility in every city, village and district by 2022. The sector was hoping the budget would breathe some life into economy, the allocated healthcare budget for this year is about 33, 150 crore.
Just compare it with the previous year, in 2014–2015, the allocated budget was 39,238 which was slashed by 20 per cent. India as a country has the lowest allocation of its GDP to healthcare and slashing it further can decelerate the growth of this important sector. There is no significant step in the budget to reform the healthcare sector especially the public private partner model that could have provided the much required impetus to the healthcare sector.
Increasing the health insurance premium exemption to about 25,000 is a welcome change. But there is a clause of Rs 5,000 for preventive health checkup. There is no clarity on the breakup. The initiatives on social security, senior citizen welfare fund and allocation of corpus through EPF and PPF are out of the box thinking, and it can change the landscape in these areas.
EH News Bureau