Harsh Vardhan reiterated the the Narendra Modi government's commitment to increase the expenditure on public health to 2.5 per cent of India's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Sunday reiterated the the Narendra Modi government's commitment to increase the expenditure on public health to 2.5 per cent of India's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025.
"The Union Government
is committed to increasing the public healthcare spending as a percentage of
GDP from the existing 1.15 per cent to 2.5 per cent by 2025," he said in
the third episode of 'Sunday Samvaad', a weekly interaction he has been holding
with his social media followers every Sunday for the last three weeks.
Harsh
Vardhan noted that the committed leap in the share means an actual rise of
345 per cent from the current expenditure.
He also added that the 15th
Finance Commission's high-level group on health has concurred that healthcare
spending must be raised substantially in the next five years in view of the
present pandemic.
Similar commitments have
been made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Health Minister J.P. Nadda
in recent years as well.
In 2017, Nadda, now the BJP
President, had said that the Central government would increase the total health
expenditure to 2.5 per cent of the GDP by 2025. Similarly, Modi, while
addressing the Partners' Forum in 2018, had said that the government is set to
increase its spending on public health to 2.5 per cent of the GDP.
However, the share of
expenditure for public health has remained stagnant at 1.15 per cent of the
GDP, despite the multiple assurances, and the Modi government has faced flak
for reduced and consistently low spending on healthcare for years now.
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