Deception in the Health Budget 2021-22
Prameela K
Published on: 1 February 2021, 11:41 am
There were huge expectations from the Health Budget but it finally turned out to be a damp squib, says RAVI DUGGAL.
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Health and Family Welfare has got an allocation of Rs. 71269 crore for 2021-22 and if we include AYUSH and Health Research it adds up to Rs 76,902 crore and this is merely 2.21% of the Total Budget in contrast to 2.27% for Budget Estimates 2020-21 and 2.47% of 2020-21 Revised Estimates.
Clearly, no growth in healthcare spending is visible for the forthcoming fiscal year. The increase in revised estimates for 2020-21 are of course due to additional emergency allocations on account of Covid-19.
The Covid-19 Emergency Response allocation has only been made for 2020-21 and not for 2021-22 as under:
- National Centre for Disease Control: Rs. 95 crores
- Supplies for Covid-19 response: Rs. 4724 crores
- Covid-19 expenses under NRHM: Rs 6935 crores
- Covid vaccines for health and frontline workers: Rs 360 crores
- Covid support for Research: Rs 2100 crores
The above adds up allocations of Rs. 14,217 crore, but what will actually be spent would be known only next year.
Table 1 presents an overview of the budget as presented in the latest budget document and what it reveals is that while the budget estimate of 2020-21 was hiked by 23% in response to covid-19 in the 2021-22 allocation, we see a decline of 10.85% from the 2020-21 revised estimates. Covid-19 has certainly not gone away and hence this decline of allocation is indeed surprising in the main health budget.
