Social outlay may go up 10-12% in Budget
The social sector boost will be a part of the Centre’s larger plan to present a ‘feel-good’ Union Budget as Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks to capture the narrative after the turmoil from demonetisation. “The social sector is now one of the main areas of focus. Expect an allocation increase of up to 1012 per cent in some schemes,” said a senior official, aware of the deliberations. A focus here would be to improve ‘last mile’ implementation of such schemes. The health ministry, for instance, is banking on the expected increase in funds to the National Health Mission (NHM) to provide more access to digitised health care services at the primary level.
In 2016-17, the exchequer allocated ~19,037 crore for this Mission. A ministry source told this newspaper the plan was to make digital records of patients at the ground level. This is apart from helping enable digital payments at health clinics. This could also benefit the health insurance sector, with a number of providers in the latter segment planning to expand their digital presence. Experts believe that if there’s a centralised health data base, the online health insurance space could work. As health is a state subject, states will have to partner with the Centre on this. The Centre will, as the NHM model suggests, fund part of the project and leave the rest to the states.
Doing the ground work for this, the government plans to discuss the matter with the World Health Organization, from the experience of other countries that have succeeded in providing health care services digitally.
Another big announcement would be a scheme for providing health care up to ~1 lakh for families below the poverty line. The Prime Minister announced the intention in this regard in his Independence Day speech, raising the upper limit from the current ~30,000 for such families as in the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana. The health ministry will require at least ~4,0005,000 crore of budgetary support to pay the insurance premium, this newspaper had reported on October 16.
The aim is to roll out the scheme from April 1.