Health Sector Allocation in India’s Budget (2021–2022): A Trick or Treat?

Abstract

The Finance Minister of India Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Budget in February 2021, giving health and well-being as a top priority for the government, with an impressive increase of 137% over the previous year’s health sector budget. The need to strengthen primary, secondary and tertiary public healthcare systems was a clear message from the budget statement. The authors analyse the current budget in the context of chronic underinvestment in health and question whether this allocation will make any meaningful impact on the public health infrastructure as the impressive headline allocation appears to be more of a trick than a treat to the health sector.