India budget to boost health care spending,
NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s government has proposed to increase spending on health care in a $477 billion budget for 2021-22 that promises extra help for weathering the coronavirus pandemic.
India is in its worst economic slowdown in a decade. The budget proposal presented to parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday also focuses on developing financial institutions and shoring up of infrastructure to get the pandemic-ravaged nation back on track as the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
“India is well well-poised to be the land of promise and hope," she said in explaining the budget for the fiscal year that begins April 1.
Contrary to expectations, the proposed budget did not promise extra support for the country’s farmers who have been protesting for more than two months against new agricultural laws which they say will favor large agribusiness and corporations.
Those protests have posed the biggest political challenge for Modi since he took office in 2014, in part because farmers are the most influential voting bloc in the country.
Sitharaman said the government plans to spend $30.20 billion on health care over the next six years to improve an underfunded health system that has creaked under the additional burden of the pandemic, which has killed more than 154,000 Indians so far.
India currently spends about 1% of its gross domestic product on health, the lowest among major economies.
Sitharaman also announced $4.81 billion to be earmarked for making more COVID-19 vaccines.
India is providing two vaccines: the AstraZeneca shot manufactured locally by Serum Institute of India and another made by Bharat Biotech. More than 3.5 million people have been vaccinated so far.
The government’s budget lays out a series of initiatives. It lifts...
