Spend more on healthcare, Rajya Sabha MPs tell Centre

Rajya Sabha. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

The Union government’s Budget allocation for healthcare needs to be boosted so that it matches the the health spend of other developing nations, Rajya Sabha MPs said during a debate on the Health Ministry on Tuesday (March 18, 2025).

Pointing at serious lapses in the management of healthcare infrastructure across the country, MPs urged the Centre to play a proactive role to improve the situation.

Initiating the debate, senior DMK leader Tiruchi Siva noted said the allocation for health stands at only 2% of the Union Budget estimate, a decline from 2.5% in 2017-18. “Instead of going up, it has come down and now it is only 1.9%. How is it possible in a country which has a population of 148.42 crore people?” he asked.

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Mr. Siva asked why the Union government, instead of controlling the population, is trying to implement delimitation. He said that birth control should have been implemented across the country uniformly and delimitation should have been done after this exercise. Instead, the southern States have controlled their population, while the northern States have failed in doing so. “The government should have concentrated on uniformity in population control and family planning,” he said. “Southern States always stand first, that’s why we are victimised, that’s why we are penalised for everything,” he added. Medical education has suffered since the implementation of National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test, he said.

Better life expectancy

BJP leader Bhagawat Karad said the Centre’s policies have resulted in increasing the life expectancy from 67 years in 2014 to 70.7 years in 2024. “This is much better than the average life expectancy of our neighbouring States. The policies have helped to reduce maternal mortality rate, which was reduced by 83% in the last ten years. Similarly, infant mortality rate also decreased in the last ten years,” he added.

Aam Aadmi Party MP Sandeep Kumar Pathak said the National Health Mission and Ayushman Bharat were designed to provide funds to States for primary healthcare centres (PHC) and affordable treatment insured by the Centre. “However, on assessing the schemes, the Centre found that 80% of the PHC are substandard,” he alleged.

RJD MP Manoj Jha said the crisis in our healthcare system is due to the reliance on private healthcare and capitalism. “A new type of medical poverty is being created and if our public healthcare breaks, India’s health will worsen,” he said.