Mobilenews24x7 Bureau
Health is wealth’but the present budget has a huge lacunae on that front as experts strongly feel that the Amrit Kal concept floated suffers a set back given the priority in the budget.
Speaking to FIT, Dr Sarit Kumar Rout, Health Economist, and Additional Professor at Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar (IIPHB), said that the higher allocations for National digital mission is a good move, adding, “this will eventually lead to electronic health records, tracking the patient history and clinical records.” And that is not all India looks for. It has to be bottom related spreading through rural health infrastructure.
“The Budget lays a futuristic ‘Amrit Kaal‘ for women, youth and marginalised communities…” said Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman in her speech on Wednesday, 1 February.
But experts like Chandrakant Lahariya holds the view that, it is not so, as they have since voiced their disappointment with the budget allocation of the total allocation for the department of health and family welfare this year is Rs 89,155 crore, which is just about 0.34 per cent higher than last year’s allocation of Rs 86,200 crore.
This, surprisingly, also includes a Rs 2980 crore budget estimate for the department of health research — which is slightly more than the 2022-23 revised estimate of Rs 2775 crore, but still less than last year’s estimate of Rs 3,200 crore.
“Critical areas of Pandemic Preparedness, Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), Mental Health, as well as focus required for infrastructure development have remained wanting in the budget,” says Himanshu Sikka, Lead – Health, Nutrition & WASH, IPE Global, an international development consultancy firm.
“Union budget is more about allocation of funds, and increasing allocations to the health sector. And that is where it is lacking.”said Dr Chandrakant Lahariya
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