The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exposed several gaps in public health systems in many countries, including India. Despite multiple challenges, India has been dealing with the health crisis much better than other large countries.
The country brought many reforms and policy level changes to address the issues. The Indian government launched production linked incentive (PLI) schemes for domestic manufacturing of critical Drug Intermediaries (DIs), Key Starting Materials (KSMs), Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), and Medical Devices, a scheme for creation of four Medical Device Parks, the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), etc. But the healthcare industry still needs a better support for sustained growth.
As the countdown for the from Union Budget 2022-23 begins, experts from the healthcare, pharma and diagnostics industry have shared their expectations from this year’s Union Budget. Apart from increasing the health expenditure above 2.5 per cent of GDP, industry experts expecting some reforms like incentivizing private investment in healthcare infrastructure, expanding health insurance coverage, investing in increasing healthcare manpower and skilling and rationalising GST on healthcare products and services in the upcoming budget of 2022-23.
Following are budget expectation quotes from industry experts:
More specific allotments in telemedicine sector
Vikram Thaploo, CEO of Apollo Telehealth (A unit of Apollo Hospitals Group), said, “The health sector is expecting more specific allotments in this year’s budget to mitigate COVID-19 and help in the growth of the telemedicine sector.”
“The telemedicine segment is growing at a rapid pace and in the future, we are expecting more technological innovations to take place in the industry therefore, the budget should be well allocated to the healthcare sector to initiate new innovations to be prepared for the fight with pandemics like covid-19 in the future. It is important especially in a country like India where digital health can truly provide care to areas with short supply of doctors. Increased allocation of budget for promotion of telemedicine, home-based healthcare and national digital health mission implementation will help in building a strong healthcare ecosystem in the country.”