Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the interim budget in the new Parliament. He has also had the honor of presenting the budget for the 6th consecutive time. New schemes, grants and new action plans have been announced for dozens of sectors in this budget.
Accordingly, many programs and projects have also been announced for the health sector. The Finance Minister said that India has overcome the challenges of Covid and has laid the foundation of self-reliant India.
So here is what has been announced in the interim Budget 2024 for the health sector.
- The government encourages vaccination against cervical cancer in girls aged 9–14 years.
- Health coverage under the Ayushman Bharat scheme will be extended to all ASHA and Anganwadi workers and assistants.
- The government is planning to set up more medical colleges using the existing hospital infrastructure under various departments. For this purpose a committee will be constituted to review the issues and make appropriate recommendations.
- All maternal and child health care schemes have been brought under one integrated program to streamline implementation.
- Upgradation of Anganwadi centers under ‘Saksham Anganwadi’ and Poshan 2.0 will be accelerated to improve nutrition delivery, early childhood care and development.
- The newly designed ‘U-WIN’ platform for intensive management of vaccination and Mission Indradhanush will be rapidly implemented across the country.
In the Union Budget 2023, the Finance Minister announced that new nursing colleges will be established along with the recently established 157 medical colleges. Sitharaman had announced a mission to eliminate sickle cell anemia by 2047 and this would include screening of seven crore people.
He also announced that facilities for research by public and private medical college faculty and the private sector will be made available in selected ICMR laboratories.
For the year 2023-24, the expenditure of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is estimated at Rs 89,155 crore, 13 per cent higher than the revised estimate for 2022-23. The National Health Mission is its largest unit, accounting for 33 percent of the ministry’s budget, and medical colleges and hospitals account for 27 percent of the budget. High financial costs and shortage of health workers remain major problems.
The government had proposed to spend Rs 45,03,097 crore in the financial year 2023-24, which is 7.5 percent more than the revised estimate for 2022-23. The total expenditure in 2022-23 is estimated to be 6.1 percent more than the budget estimate.