New Delhi: Coming with a flurry of announcements in her budget speech, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has given a boost to several public and private health initiatives by raising the allocation for healthcare by 9.78 per cent to more than ₹99 thousand crore for FY25-26.
Though a social media post the Union Health Minister shared that, the Union Budget 2025-26 strengthens India’s healthcare sector with an allocation of ₹99,858.56 crore, marking a 191 per cent increase from ₹34,286 crore in 2014-15 and a 9.78 per cent rise from ₹90,958.63 crore in 2024-25.
Highlighting key healthcare initiatives announced in the budget, the minister stressed, ”The Union Budget 2025-26 aims to support gig workers by registering them on the e-Shram portal and providing healthcare under PM Jan Arogya Yojana, benefiting nearly 1 crore workers.
“It also focuses on promoting medical tourism and the “Heal in India” initiative, in collaboration with the private sector, alongside easier visa norms to attract international patients,” the post reads.
In another social media post Nadda stated, “Our Government offers significant relief to patients requiring life-saving treatments, especially those with chronic diseases like cancer, as the Budget exempts 36 life saving medicines from basic customs duties (BCD), reduces costs of critical medicines through concessional duties, and announced exemptions to bulk drugs used in manufacturing of the said medicines.”
Besides these initiatives, the Finance Minster has also announced plans to set up day care cancer centre in district hospitals and has laid out a target of 200 centres to be established in FY2025-26, with further plans to cover all districts over the next three years.
