Medical education, hospitalisation cost cover, TB treatment get priority

The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today made some big-bang announcements for the health care sector in his Budget speech.

The government will provide up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation, Jaitley said. 

This will be the world's largest government-funded health care programme, he added. 

For health care "Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah", "Sarve Santu Nir-Aamayaah" (May All become Happy, May All be Free from Illness.) and Flagship National Health Health Protection schemes will be launched to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. 

"Tuberculosis claims more lives every year than any other infectious disease. It affects mainly the poor and malnourished. My government has decided to allocate Rs600 crore to provide nutritional support to all TB patient at the rate of Rs500 per month for the duration of their treatment," Jaitley said. 

In order to further enhance the accessibility of quality medical education, we will be setting up 24 new government medical colleges and hospitals by upgrading existing district colleges in the country. 

The government would ensure that at least 1 medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies and at least 1 government college in each state of the country. 

"Commendable for the coverage of 10 crore family, impacting nearly 50 crore people and committing Rs 5.00 lacs per family. We would need to wait to see that we differentiate this initiative from some of the countries such as UK where NHS is failing as an anchor institution,"  said Milind Kothari, Managing Partner,  Tax and Regulatory services, BDO India.