Union Budget 2022, Ayush Ministry gets Rs.3,050 Crore

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday (01-02-2022) unveiled budget for fiscal year 2022-23

The health sector has been allocated Rs. 86,200.65 crore in the Union Budget, a hike of 16 percent over Rs 73,931 crore in 2021-22.

Out of Rs 86200.65 crore, Rs 83,000 crore have been allocated to the Department of Health and Family Welfare while Rs 3200 crore have been allocated to the Department of Health Research.

In her Budget speech for the fiscal year beginning April 2022, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday that 

• 23 National Tele Mental Health Programme will be launched to improve access to quality mental health counselling and care services with NIMHANS being the nodal centre and the International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore (IIITB) providing technology support.
• An open platform for National Digital Health Ecosystem consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity, consent framework, and universal access to health facilities.
• The budget allocation for central sector schemes and projects has been increased from Rs 10,566 crore to Rs 15,163 crore.
• The allocation for National Digital Health Mission – NHM has been increased from Rs 30 crore to Rs 200 crore.
• For the National Health Mission, the budget allocation increased from Rs 36,576 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 37,000 crore in 2022-23.

For Ayush

• Ayush services under the National Ayush Mission (NAM) have gotten major boost. The total allocation of budget to Ayush Ministry in last 7 years has increased over four times from 691 Cr to Rs.3,050 Cr. 
• Under NAM, a Centre sponsored scheme, up to Rs 800 Crore will help Ayush in the upgradation of its hospitals and dispensaries, support cultivation of medicinal plants and in many other areas including increase in export of value added items of medicinal plants. The NAM had earlier received the budget of Rs 500 Cr.
• In Champion service Sector Scheme the budget has been doubled in this scheme that is from Rs. 29.6 Cr to Rs. 60.22 Cr.
• All the states (Rs 610 Cr), union territories (Rs 70 Cr) and North eastern areas (Rs 181.97 Cr) have also witnessed an increase in grants-in-aids i.e from Rs 547.87 Cr to Rs 861.97 Cr overall. 
• Growing popularity and dependency on the digital space, the central Government emphasized building the digi-infrastructure which Ayush has well supported. The various provisions under the budget will see a major step towards digitizing the entire Ayush sector under Ayush-grid. 
• Considering the strength of Ayurveda, Yoga, and other traditional Indian system of medicine, the Global Centre for Traditional Medicine (GCTM-WHO) in India is being setup and the budgetary provisions have been done for the establishment of the centre. Establishment of WHO (GCTM) in India will directly affect investment in traditional medicine sector in India and India can emerge as a global leader with concerted efforts. 
• The research councils, centre of excellence and autonomous bodies also got the fair boost in the budget as they were allotted Rs 1870.1 Cr.

Source: PIB