Healthcare allocations up 16 %

New Delhi: Union acting Finance Minister, Piyush Goyal announced Friday Rs 61,398 crore budgetary allocation for the health sector for the 2019-2020 fiscal, with Rs 6,400 crore earmarked for the centre’s ambitious AB-PMJAY health insurance scheme.

The health outlay for the upcoming financial year is the highest in the last two financial years and a 16 per cent increase over the 2018-2019 allocation which was Rs 54,302.50 crore.

It must be stated here that the a major portion of the allocation will be spent on Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) which was launched September 23 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The scheme aims at providing a cover of Rs 5,00,000 lakh per family annually and is aimed at benefitting more than 10 crore poor families across the country.

Meanwhile the healthcare industry Friday welcomed the government’s move to include ‘Healthy India’ as one of its 10 key priorities under the vision for the next decade as highlighted by Goyal in his budget speech. The industry, however, said it expected higher budget allocation for healthcare.

Reacting to the interim Budget, Apollo Hospitals Group Joint MD Sangita Reddy said: “The interim budget threw light on the Government’s dedication to a healthy India with a distress-free healthcare system.”

The budget highlighted the government’s aim to bridge the urban rural divide and provide benefits that people in a city have to those staying in villages. Healthcare should be a critical component of these efforts, she added.