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The Covid-19 pandemic has been a sort of an eyeopener for the government to prioritize India’s healthcare segment, with industry experts calling for a sharp increase in budgetary allocation with special focus on preventive care, mental health and digitization of the sector.
In the last budget, the government allocated around Rs 86,200 crore to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), a 16.5 per cent increase over the previous year.
The Economic Survey 2023 tabled by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament on Tuesday showed that the central and state governments’ budgeted expenditure in the health sector reached 2.1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022-23. The revised estimate the year before was 2.2 per cent of the GDP.
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In comparison, just 1.6 per cent of the GDP was spent by the Center and state governments on healthcare in 2020-21 (FY21)
The National Health Policy, 2017, envisages increasing the government’s health expenditure to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2025.
Moreover, the share of government’s health expenditure in total health outlay has increased from 28.6 per cent in FY14 to 40.6 per cent in FY19, the Economic Survey revealed.
The out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) as a share of total health expenditure has come down to 48.2 per cent in FY19 from 64.2 per cent in FY14 as per the report.
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The survey report also showed the share of expenditure on health in the total expenditure on social services has increased from 21 per cent in FY19 to 26 per cent in FY23 (BE).
“This underscores the rising importance of public healthcare and social security in ensuring universal health coverage,” the report said.
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