The Budget 2012-13 has been fair to the health sector. The increased Budget allocation to two flagship programmes of the government — Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) — is noteworthy.
The incentives include deduction of up to Rs 5,000 in direct tax for preventive health check-up, indirect and service tax concession to several essential healthcare products, and a multi-sectoral nutrition augmentation programme. All these measures would strengthen secondary and primary healthcare services, respectively.
FLAGSHIP PROGRAMMES
The RSBY has immensely benefited in this Budget, with an allocation of Rs 1096.7 crore. The RSBY is a health insurance scheme for secondary-level care services for the BPL and disadvantaged sections of the society, which has been functioning under the Ministry of Labour and Employment since 2006. The RSBY scheme is expected to cover the entire BPL population, (which accounts for 37.2 per cent of the Indian population as per the Tendulkar committee estimate of BPL) in every year on a rolling basis, but could enrol only around 10 per cent of the Indian population by March 31, 2011.
Though there is an increase in the Budget allocation to RSBY, the allocated fund isn't sufficient to enrol the entire BPL population. A recent study on RSBY (Dror and Vellakkal 2012,
BUDGET ALLOCATION
The NRHM is another scheme that has been benefited through a consistent increase in Budget allocation during the years to encompass the primary healthcare needs of people in rural areas. The allocation for NRHM increased from Rs 18,115 crore in 2011-12, to Rs 20,822 crore in 2012-13. The allocation for NRHM was only Rs 14988.02 crore (actual) in 2010-11, and Rs 14702.76 crore (actual) in 2009-10, respectively. The increased Budget allocation, as per the Budget speech of the Finance Minister, will be reflected by enlarging the scope of the Accredited Social Health Activist's (ASHA's) activities (the NRHM is being implemented through ASHA), to include prevention of Iodine Deficiency Disorders, providing 100 per cent immunisation, supporting the initiative on malnutrition and, finally, for better spacing of children.
However, the Budget allocation to the health sector doesn't fully reflect the Government's commitment to double the GDP on health. One possible explanation could be that the Planning Commission has been working on the recently-submitted report of the High Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Universal Health Coverage. Perhaps, we can expect that there will be a steep increase in the budgetary allocation to health in the coming years to achieve Universal Health Coverage.