A new health protection scheme, additional 3,000 medical stores to provide quality and affordable medicines, a programme to provide dialysis services in all district hospitals, increased excise duty on tobacco products by 10 to 15 per cent to make them unaffordable to consumers are some of the major highlights in the Budget 2016-17 for the health sector.
The allocation for health in this Budget has been increased by 22 per cent over the previous year’s Budget estimate to Rs 40,657 crore.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the new National Health Protection scheme will be launched under which a cover up to Rs 1 lakh per family will be provided. One-third of India’s population is estimated to get protection against hospitalisation expenditure.
“A serious illness of family member(s) causes severe stress on the financial condition of poor and economically weak families, shaking the foundation of their economic security.
“In order to help such families, the Government will launch a new health protection scheme which will provide health cover up to Rs 1 lakh per family,” said Jaitley.
He said that for senior citizens, who are 60 years of age and above, an additional top-up package up to Rs 30,000 will be provided.
In view of rising cases of renal disease and lack of affordable dialysis centre, the Government plans to start a dialysis programme, for which the funds will be brought through public private partnership. This will be available in all district hospitals and the Government will exempt dialysis equipment from certain basic customs duty.
“Every dialysis session costs about Rs 2,000 leading to an annual expenditure of more than Rs 3 lakh. Besides, most families have to undertake frequent trips, often over long distances to access dialysis services, incurring heavy travel costs and loss of wages.
The Union Finance Minister also proposed to exempt certain parts of dialysis equipment from basic customs duty, excise or Countervailing Duty (CVD) and Special Additional Duty (SAD).
Observing that making quality medicines available at affordable prices has been a “key challenge”, Jaitley said the Government will “reinvigorate” the supply of generic drugs by opening 3,000 stores under Prime Minister Jan Aushadhi Yojna launched in 2008.
To discourage consumption of tobacco and tobacco products, the Finance Ministry has proposed to increase the Excise duties on various tobacco products other than beedi by about 10 to 15%.
While welcoming the new initiatives, Indian Medical Association, Secretary General KK Aggarwal said that its main demand of allocating 2.5 per cent of GDP to health has not been addressed. Vandana luthra from VlCC Healthcare too felt that investment in preventive healthcare measures by way of service tax reduction would have helped increase longevity and overall productivity of people.