Economic Survey 2023: Govt Spent 2.1% Of GDP On Healthcare In FY23. Key Highlights

The Centre's budgeted expenditure in health sector touched 2.2 per cent in financial year (FY) 2022-23, up from 1.6 per cent in FY21.

The Economic Survey 2023 tabled by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament on Tuesday showed that the central and state governments' budgeted expenditure in the health sector reached 2.1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022-23. The revised estimate the year before was 2.2 per cent of the GDP.

In comparison, just 1.6 per cent of the GDP was spent by the Centre and state governments on healthcare in 2020-21 (FY21)

The National Health Policy, 2017, envisages increasing the government's health expenditure to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2025.

Moreover, the share of government's health expenditure in total health outlay has increased from 28.6 per cent in FY14 to 40.6 per cent in FY19, the Economic Survey revealed.

The out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) as a share of total health expenditure has come down to 48.2 per cent in FY19 from 64.2 per cent in FY14 as per the report.

The survey report also showed the share of expenditure on health in the total expenditure on social services has increased from 21 per cent in FY19 to 26 per cent in FY23 (BE).  

"This underscores the rising importance of public healthcare and social security in ensuring universal health coverage," the report said.

Infectious dieseases expert Dr Ishwar Gilada, speaking on the Economic Survey report, said the government must invest "very highly" in health if it wanted to enjoy the fruits of India's continuous upward stride globally.

"It is unfortunate that we did not learn lessons from the pandemic. It looks memories are short-lived despite very high morbidity and mortality during that period, mostly due to short of medical preparedness and shortage of facilities. We must give credence to the  well-proven fact that only a healthy nation can be a wealthy nation. We do hope the Budget for FY2024 will honour this principle and and expenditure in the health sector will be in path to reach 4% of GDP," Dr Gilada told ABP Live.

Economic Survey 2023: Key Highlights Of Healthcare Sector

• Health Infrastructure: The survey report calls health infrastructure as "the nerve centre of the public health system". The report highlighted a rise in the number of sub-centres (SCs), Primary Health Centres (PHCs), and Community Health Centres (CHCs) in rural areas. Under the Ayushman Bharat programme, 1.5 lakh Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) have been made operational before December 31, 2022.


• Covid And Vaccination: As of January 6, 2023, India has been able to administer more than 220 crore Covid vaccine doses across the country. About 97 per cent of eligible beneficiaries have already received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine and around 90 per cent of eligible beneficiaries have received both the doses. Also, 22.4 crore precautionary or booster doses have been administered.


• Importance Of Co-WIN Platform: The survey also said the Co-WIN system, the digital backbone for the Covid vaccination drive, provided an end-to-end solution with utilities for the entire public health system. "With more than 84.7 crore Co-WIN beneficiaries seeded with Aadhaar among the total 104 crore (between January 2021 to September 2022), the seeds of JAM sown in FY15 proved to be a life saver for the nation," the report stated.


• Covid Infrastructure And Medical Oxygen: The Economic Survey mentions that a three-tier arrangement of dedicated Covid-19 health facilities in the country was implemented to reduce the risk of cross-infection to non-Covid patients and to make provision for non-Covid essential health services. 
  This three-tier arrangement comprises of a dedicated Covid Care Centre with isolation beds for mild or pre-symptomatic cases, dedicated Covid Health Centre with oxygen-supported isolation beds for moderate cases, and dedicated Covid Hospital with ICU beds for severe cases. Besides this, tertiary care hospitals under the ESIC, Defence, Railways, Central Armed Police Forces, Steel Ministry, etc., were also leveraged for case management.


• Oxygen Generation Plants And Equipment: The survey said 4,135 PSA plants were being established in the country, which would enhance the oxygen generation capacity by 4,852 MT. Also, 4,02,517 oxygen cylinders have been supplied to States/UTs/ Central Government hospitals so far. Moreover, a total of 1,13,186 oxygen concentrators have been procured by the government for Covid management.