Budget on health: A “pandemic” opportunity missed

Against the backdrop of the pandemic, many expected health to get its much deserved pride of place in Budget 2022. But that was not the case, say health experts.

“The world is going through the pandemic of the century and India has seen two waves of Covid-19 and is going through the third, this was an opportunity to show sensitivity to the people affected. The inadequacies of the health infrastructure could have also been addressed,” says former Union Health Secretary JVR Prasada Rao, adding that healthcare infrastructure had been “shattered” by the relentless Covid-19 waves. “This would have been a good time to have recognised the services of doctors, nurses and paramedical workers, besides addressing their shortages,” he adds.

Pointing to the small entrepreneurs who contributed during the devastating waves, making masks to sanitizers and syringes to ventilators, he says, “They have done a tremendous service and should have been incentivised and supported so the country is prepared for such emergencies. But there is not even an acknowledgement of their efforts.”

‘No where near’

Several people lost family members to the pandemic and the government should have extended some support or social security to them, he said, adding that court-directed compensations were limited in those it benefitted.

“Amidst a pandemic, the health allocation has been stagnant, when it should have been much more,” says Sakthivel Selvaraj, Director and Professor (Health Economics Financing and Policy Unit) with the Public Health Foundation of India. As a result, the Centre is “no where near” its commitment of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on health by 2025, he says, when in fact, the allocations should be higher, since GDP is projected to increase next year.

Health economist Indranil, with the OP Jindal Global Univeristy points out that “research was getting neglected, and that too at this point in time,” a pandemic year when researchers should have got more support to innovate. On the new digital health initiatives, he cautioned, their financing should not be done by taking away from existing programmes or institutions, like the NHM or ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research). Echoing the concern that health-spends did not reflect the commitment made by the Centre, he called for more transparency on data and funding.

Outside Budget allocation

Meanwhile, some industry representatives say, the Centre was also allocating funds outside of the Budget to the pharmaceutical and healthcare segments. Hence, possibly, the limited mention in the Budget.

Sudarshan Jain with the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, representing large domestic drugmakers says the Budget was consistent in its direction. The extension of tax concession on the PLI (production linked incentives) and promise of support on research, he said, was good for pharmaceutical companies.

But Rajiv Nath, forum coordinator with the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry, laments, “Imports from China of price sensitive medical devices went up steeply by 75 per cent from ₹5,208 crore in 2019-20 to ₹9,112 crore in 2020-21. This is a lost opportunity for Indian manufacturers...” Especially so, since “these are the same Indian manufacturers/ entrepreneurs, when imports got disrupted during Covid-19 crisis, the government relied heavily on them to meet the rising demand of essential Covid items for the country pushing the Indian medical devices sector to become self-reliant,” he says.

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