Union Budget 2025: 1 crore gig workers to get Ayushman Bharat cover; Health Ministry spend up ₹9,000 crore

Last year, the government expanded the coverage of the flagship health scheme to all citizens over the age of 70 years, irrespective of their economic status. The allocation for the scheme increased by ₹2,106 crore as per the budget documents.

“At least people in formal employment are covered by employment health insurance schemes. So it’s important that gig workers, who are vulnerable to several health problems, particularly since they work under stressful conditions and quite often extreme weather conditions, be provided some health cover. It is part and parcel of extending the ambit of universal health coverage, which is in a state of evolution, but adding one more section is always helpful in providing coverage,” said Dr Srinath Reddy, former president of the Public Health Foundation of India.

Another significant announcement for the health sector was the increase in the number of medical seats. Sitharaman on Saturday announced that another 10,000 medical seats would be added during the current financial year, gearing towards the goal of increasing the number of medical seats by 75,000 over the next five years. There has been a massive expansion in the number of medical seats over the last decade — the number of MBBS seats has increased from 51,384 before 2014 to 1,12,112 in 2024 and the number of PG seats has increased from 31,185 to 72,627.

This increase, however, has led to other challenges. Even as the national medical education regulator has been working on tightening staffing norms, colleges have been grappling with severe staff shortage. The geographical distribution of medical seats has also been skewed with some places like Karnataka and Puducherry having more than their required share. This had prompted the regulator National Medical Commission to bring in a norm of 100 MBBS seats per 10 lakh population. The norm was later put on hold when some states said they had exceeded the numbers, but with respect to private colleges and not government ones. These issues were raised even in the economic survey released on Friday.

Saturday’s budget also saw an increase of ₹1,000 crore allocation under the PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM), increasing from ₹3,200 crore to ₹4,200 crore. This mission was launched during the Covid-19 pandemic to strengthen health infrastructure at all levels, construction of health and wellness centres, diagnostic laboratories, and critical care blocks.

The budget for All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi was increased from ₹4,523 crore to ₹5,200 crore — an increase of ₹677 crore. In fact, AIIMS Delhi had received an increased allocation of ₹397.33 crore over the previous year’s budget estimates.