New Delhi: The National Health Policy, 2017 envisages public expenditure on health to increase to 2.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in a time bound manner by 2025. In the meantime, the government says it has increased the budget allocations for the health mildly as compared to the last time.
The revised estimate for 2016-17 and budget estimate for 2017-18 under National Health Mission are Rs 20,037 crore and Rs 21,940 crore respectively.
A statement showing expenditure on health by Government of India as well as States/UTs and as the percentage of GDP for 2015-16 (RE) and 2016-17 (BE) shows the comparative increase of 0.03 percent.
| Heads | 2015-16(RE) |
2016-17 (BE) |
| Government of India | 43,657.61 Crore |
49,874.33 Crore |
| States/UTs | 1,14,085.75 Crore | 1,30,782.43 Crore |
| Total | 1,57,743.36 Crore | 1,80,656.76 Crore |
| As percentage of GDP | 1.15 % | 1.18% |
Source: (i) Health Sector Financing by Centre and States/UTs in India ( 2014-15 to 2016-17). (ii) GDP date source: CSO, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Press Note dated 28/2/2017.
The Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Mrs Anupriya Patel stated this in a written reply in the Parliament recently.
