PM’s vision of setting up 3,000 hospitals in tier 3 towns with 100-150 beds each is yet to be achieved

“The upcoming budget represents a significant opportunity to strengthen India’s healthcare infrastructure, drive growth, and enhance our resilience. We anticipate substantial investments in public health infrastructure, primary healthcare facilities, and essential medicines. Moreover, promoting telemedicine and digital healthcare solutions will be vital in making healthcare more accessible and efficient to everyone.

We also foresee major advancements in areas such as home and transit care services and the rapidly expanding field of medical tourism. With India aspiring to be the world’s medical tourism hub, policies which will simplify processes at Indian embassies provide insurance recognition for Indian healthcare providers, and establish facilities such as welcome desks at airports in major cities will be instrumental.

PM’s vision of setting up 3,000 hospitals in tier 3 towns with 100-150 beds each is yet to be achieved. To make this happen, the government should incentivise the private sector, by providing affordable electricity, low-cost land, accessible loans, and streamlined approval processes. Enhanced budget allocations could significantly improve healthcare accessibility and affordability across tier 2, and tier 3 cities along with the metro cities.

Simplifying and making taxes fairer, particularly through GST reforms, can further support this goal. It is essential to expand healthcare facilities in rural and suburban areas to meet rising demand. Additionally, while there was a focus on AI in healthcare last year, the recent budget in February misses the specific allocations for this critical area. The potential of AI in diagnostics and medical advancements is immense. We urge the government to expand the relevant schemes to cover the development of hardware supporting advanced digital technologies like Generative AI. This will enable us to fully leverage AI’s transformative power in healthcare.”