Rs 5,000 cr short for free dialysis, drugs

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

The BJP government’s key plans to provide free drugs, diagnostics and dialysis from this financial year are facing monetary challenges with the Health Ministry at least Rs 5,000 crore short of actual requirements to roll out these ambitious schemes.

If that was less, a comparison of the budget promised to the sector under the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) and allocations made reveals a massive shortfall of over 50%.

These revelations form part of the latest report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health, which looked at budget allocations for the Health Ministry in 2016-17. The review left the panel disappointed. It notes, “The National Health Mission and health sector as a whole have been soft targets whenever the government has faced a resource crunch.”

The Ministry of Health has acknowledged before the committee that in order to undertake new initiatives like free drugs, diagnostics and dialysis, the minimum required increase in allocation for the 2016-17 is Rs 5,000 crore. Another revealing set of data relates to the approved plan outlay for the sector in the 12th Plan and actual allocations made.

Whereas the Planning Commission (now abolished) had approved Rs 1,93,405.761 crore for NHM and Rs 2,68,551 crore for the Health Ministry from 2012-13 to 2016-17, the total budget allocation by the Government has been only Rs 90,000.82 crore and Rs 1,25,117 crore, respectively. This is only 46.50 pc of the original funding envisaged for the sector.

The Ministry has acknowledged before the panel that 10 per cent increased devolution of funds to states hasn’t led to increased budgets for health.