Union Budget 2016: Arun Jaitley disappoints those eyeing healthcare sector

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday announced that the government will provide health insurance of up to Rs 1 lakh per family. He also added that senior citizens would be applicable for an additional top-up of Rs 30,000.

New Delhi, February 29: The Union Budget 2016-17 announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday has again disappointed the healthcare sector on larger schemes.

Jaitley on Monday announced that the government will provide health insurance of up to Rs 1 lakh per family. He also added that senior citizens would be applicable for an additional top-up of Rs 30,000. The Budget proposal has mentioned opening of 35,000 medical stores under Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Yojana and National Dialysis Programme along with excise duty waiver on equipments related to dialysis.

The Finance Minister had once again ignored larger schemes like increased national spend for overall healthcare, larger insurance coverage, infrastructure related to healthcare development and increased access to primary and secondary healthcare.Read Also: (Budget 2016: Arun Jaitley gives final touch to Budget, meet the team that designed it)

Despite the hope built by Prime Minister Narendra Modi government to give special emphasize to health, none of the proposals were included in the new Budget plan tabled today.

The rural and urban India is widely divided in the health care system also with 70 percent of country’s population still lives in rural areas who have almost a negligible access to hospitals and clinics in their villages. A report suggest that more than 80 percent of specialists live in urban India. Health care development and infrastructure and its easy accessibility can help India fight against diseases.

In last 10 years the growth on total healthcare in India has been decreased from 4.30 percent to 4.05 percent with a high rate of growth in low-middle income population. In 2012 the total public spending on health care in India was around Rs 2500.

The main problem in the health care lies with the government hospitals and their infrastructure. Besides healthcare infrastructure the second biggest hurdle of India’s healthcare industry is its large number of medically uninsured population who live across the rural pocket of the country.

The Indian Health care industry has seen a rapid growth of 17 percent and by 2020 the industry is expected to become a US $280 billion industry. In India around one million die every year due to lack in healthcare facilities and more than 700 million people across the nation have no access for treatment under specialist.

The Government now needs to work hard on the health care sector which is in dire need of funds to improve their infrastructure and skills set to increase to increase positive results. Also availability of cheap medicine will help the pharma industry to launch new drugs and explore the market while expanding the existing ones.