Health dept likely to get big push in State budget

Hyderabad: With new district medical colleges in the pipeline before the State polls at the end of the year 2023 and the requirement of money for various schemes, the Health department is likely to have more budget this year. It is learnt that the health department officials have sought a budget of Rs 15,000 crore in the budget.

According to sources, the officials have prepared proposals and sent them to the Finance department for inclusion in the budget. The State government has proposed to start 17 medical colleges in the State during the next two years including nine in the next academic year. The nine medical colleges would be coming up at Karimnagar, Khammam, Kamareddy, Vikarabad, Sircilla, Jangaon, Nirmal, Bhupalapally and Asifabad. It may be mentioned here that the government had started eight new medical colleges in the districts of Kothagudem, Nagarkurnool, Mahabubabad, Sangareddy, Ramagundam, Wanaparthy, Jagtial and Mancherial.

Along with this the government is taking up the construction of super specialty hospitals at three corners in the city. The budget would have a mention about the allocation of funds for these hospitals. The state government would be spending over Rs 2,600 on these hospitals.

Along with these, the popular schemes of the government like KCR Kit, Kanti Velugu, KCR Nutrition Kits and others require huge budgetary allocations. The budgetary allocations during the year 2021-22 were over Rs 6,000 Crore, which increased to Rs 10,000 Crore during the year 2022-23. The officials estimate that Rs 15,000 crore would be needed for the next year because of the new projects.

The elections are slated to be held this year and in case there is a need to spend on the schemes, the increased allocations would be handy for the department. The government had allocated Rs 200 Crore for the Kanti Velugu programme this time.