Booster Dose
With record healthcare expenditure and allocations focussing on mitigating the impact of Covid-19, it's a shot in the arm for the sector
Illustration by Raj Verma
The highest-ever healthcare allocation in a budget will provide the much-needed boost to the ailing economy, and pave the way for a robust, holistic public healthcare infrastructure to tackle future pandemics, according to industry experts.
The Budget outlay for 'Health and Wellbeing' for 2021/22 came in at a record Rs 2,23,846 crore, a 137 per cent increase over this year's Budget estimate of Rs 94,452 crore. It is about 1.6 per cent of India's projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at Rs 134.4 lakh crore for 2020/21. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who earmarked Rs 35,000 crore for Coronavirus vaccination as a short-term overall reset to correct the ailing economy, also announced a two-pronged strategy after listening to experts in the sector.