The Budget for 2025-’26 has been announced. Let us see how the budget this year compares with the budget allocated for health last year. Here are some key points:
1. Increased allocation
The health budget for this year has seen a significant increase of 9.7% compared to the previous year, with a total allocation of Rs 99,858.56 crore. This is a substantial jump from the Rs 90,958.63 crore allocated in 2024.
2. Ayushman Bharat
The budget for Ayushman Bharat has been increased by 24% to Rs 9,406 crore. In 2024, the revised estimate for Ayushman Bharat was Rs 7,606 crores.
3. PM-ABHIM
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The allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) has grown by 26.7% to Rs 4,758.45 crore, in this year's budget announced by Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
4. Medical Education
Budget 2025 proposed an increase of 10,000 new medical seats next year, with a goal of adding 75,000 seats over five years. This is a step that has gone much further than all the previous budgets in the area of medical education. It has also allocated Rs 1,475 crore for human resources in health and medical education which is a 40% increase from the previous year.
5. Digitisation of healthcare
The national digital health mission (ABDM) has seen an allocation of Rs 340.11 crore, representing a 70% increase from the previous year.
6. Pharma sector
The Union Budget 2025 has brought several positive developments for the pharma industry, including full exemption from basic customs duty on 36 lifesaving drugs and concessional duty of 5% on 6 more.
The government’s decision to fully exempt specified drugs under Patient Assistance Programmes (PAPs) and add 37 new medicines along with 13 additional PAPs will significantly improve access to critical medicines and reduce treatment costs for patients in need. In comparison, last year's budget allocated Rs 2023 crore and focused on promoting manufacturing and R&D.
7. Cancer care infrastructure
While the current Budget announcement to set up daycare cancer centres in all district hospitals over the next three years—starting with 200 in 2025-26, the budget 2024 did not specifically mention allocations for cancer care infrastructure.
"While these are welcome steps, we had hoped for a stronger push towards pharmaceutical R&D. Increasing allocation beyond the current 1% of GDP, raising the weighted tax deduction for R&D expenditure from 100% to 200%, and swiftly rolling out the Research Linked Incentive scheme remain critical to fostering drug innovation. We urge the government to consider these priorities to further bolster research in India’s pharma industry and healthcare ecosystem,” said Saransh Chaudhary, President, Global Critical Care, Venus Remedies Ltd and CEO, Venus Medicine Research Centre.
