Budget neglected mental health, allege activists

Dr Anant Phadke, co convenor of Jan Arogya Abhiyan in Maharashtra, also pointed out that people had faced an grueling period during the pandemic due to inadequate health facilities and an under-resourced public health system. “We have been demanding concrete measures to improve the dilapidated health system and that allocations for crucial schemes be increased significantly. But all demands have fallen on deaf ears,” Dr Phadke said.

The Union Health Budget 2023–24 falls flat because it has completely overlooked lessons of the pandemic, and fails to allocate much-needed upturn in allocations to strengthen the public health system, the National Health Mission programme, services for women and children, mental health programme, essential health research, and the very important allied sectors, say health activists.

“If we look at the Union Health Ministry’s total budget (including Ministry of AYUSH), allocations have increased from Rs 89,251 crore (2022-23) to Rs 92,803 crore (2022-23 BE), that is an increase of Rs 3,552 crore only. If we adjust for the effect of inflation this means a decline of 2% in real terms,” Dr Shukla further pointed out.

As percent of GDP, Union government’s allocation to health has declined from 0.37% to 0.31% between 2021-22 actual expenditure and 2023-24 BE. This also means the Union Government has marked down its priority towards the health sector, with its share declining from 2.26% to 2.06% in the total budget as compared with the previous year, activists have said. Since 2019-20, National Health Mission (NHM) allocations have declined in real terms.

“It was important the government undertake special efforts to ensure safe motherhood, universal vaccination and expand various disease control programmes to catch up with the losss incurred during the pandemic, but this pressing need has been ignored,” according to the statement.

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) has failed in providing access to healthcare services to the poor and deprived. “This scheme should be scrapped, and the resources should be used instead to strengthen the public health system,” Dr Shukla added. Other critical elements related to women’s health have been neglected in the new budget, activists have also said.

In the year 2020-21, actual expenditure on health research was 3.8% of the health budget, which declined to 3.1% in the current budget. Furthermore, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which has led several research initiatives during the pandemic, including on vaccines, has received a cut in allocation.

The national mental health programme too has received a measly allocation of INR 40 crores- which continues to be the same since 2019-20. This amounts to spending just 30 paise per person per year for the NMHP, the activists said.