Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Mar 04, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Mar 04, 2005 |
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Industry & Economy
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Health Despite failing to spend allocation ... Health Ministry may ask for more Nithya Subramanian
New Delhi , March 3 THE Health Ministry may be seeking a hike in budgetary allocation but it has managed to utilise less than half of the funds allocated for this year.
This despite the fact that the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) having stated that the Government is committed to raising public spending on health to at least 2-3 per cent of the GDP. According to Government sources, it may manage to utilise just 55 per cent of its allocations by the end of the current fiscal. According to Budget estimates, Rs 5,500 crore was allocated to the Department of Family Welfare while Rs 1,800 crore has been given to the Health Department. And the recent diktat from the Finance Ministry capping spends in the last quarter to just 33.3 per cent of the total allocations has made last minute distribution of funds impossible. "Money earmarked for several of the projects have not been utilised at all. While Rs 70 crore was allocated for the cancer programme this year, only Rs 1 crore has been spent so far. Similarly, Rs 20 crore was kept aside for trauma centres but nothing has been utilised so far," said the sources. Projects such as mobile hospitals, low procurement and setting up mental health centres have not taken off. The unutilised money will now go to the Consolidated Fund of India, they said. The Health Minister, Dr A. Ramadoss, is planning to take corrective measures to ensure that this situation does not remain next year. He is looking at the possibility of intensifying monitoring of projects and is also setting up a procurement cell for buying medicines, vaccines, hospital equipment and integration education and communication. This year, the Budget has given the Health Ministry Rs 10,200 crore, as against a demand of Rs 10,700 crore. However, the allocation for the ambitious National Rural Health Mission, scheduled to take off in April, has not been finalised yet. The cess levied on cigarettes and gutka, expected to garner about Rs 700 crore, will be utilised for this programme.
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