While the finance minister’s union budget speech had comprehensive proposals on issues like job creation, manufacturing, power and infrastructure development, there were relatively fewer announcements for healthcare. The exemption of customs duty on three additional cancer medicines showcases a commitment to improving affordability and access to critical treatments, potentially alleviating the financial burden on patients battling this challenging illness. Concurrently, the synchronization of Basic Customs Duty on X-ray equipment components with domestic manufacturing capacity demonstrates a nuanced approach to supporting local production while ensuring healthcare providers can access cutting-edge diagnostic tools. The initiatives to boost start-ups like angel tax abolition with help the development of new-age health-tech ventures, which have the potential to provide innovative healthcare delivery solutions.
Additionally, the announcement of setting up a medical college in Bihar is a welcome move, however, we would like to see faster implementation of this and similar proposals to set up medical colleges and nursing colleges announced in the previous budgets. There were however no big measures to boost the healthcare sector as a whole like GST, incentives for infrastructure development, health insurance, faster implementation of national digital health mission etc.
Overall, the Union Budget overall is an extension of the Interim Budget announced earlier and we need to study the fine print and details for execution of the schemes and initiatives announced earlier and to analyse the impact on the healthcare industry “