Government aims to increase public health expenditure to 2.5% of GDP by 2025

The Union Health Ministry has pushed for increased expenditure on public health. In a meeting with the 15th Finance Commission, the Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, yesterday highlighted that the government aims at gradually increasing the public health expenditure to 2.5 per cent of the nation's GDP by the year 2025.

The 15th Finance Commission held a meeting with Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and senior officials of the ministry on revising the State Specific proposals of the ministry in light of the COVID-19 experience. The Chairman of the Commission, N K Singh, said looking at the peculiar state of the pandemic, the commission's final report will have a separate chapter on health.

The Minister asserted that the outlay for primary health expenditure will also be made nearly two-third of the total public health expenditure in the country. Reiterating the government's target of the National Health Policy 2017, Dr Vardhan emphasized on the importance of increasing the state's health sector spending to nearly 8 per cent of their total budget.

The National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 targets include increasing public health expenditure to 2.5 per cent of the GDP, in a progressive manner, by 2025. It seeks, Primary Health Expenditure to be 2/3rd of the total health expenditure and increase state sector health spending to more than 8 per cent of their budget by 2020.

The Commission agreed that there was a need to increase public sector health outlay and also to develop a professional cadre of health workers, the statement added.

The Health Ministry apprised the Finance Commission of the need to further strengthen the public health sector, surveillance and public health management, preventive and promotive health care system in the country.

The Health Ministry has also revised its requirement of around Rs 4.9 lakh crores to Rs 6.04 lakh crores in view of the COVID pandemic. He has asked for additional resources for the States which would be utilized for the achievement of the National Health Policy targets.