Published Feb 02, 2026 | 8:07 AM ⚊ Updated Feb 02, 2026 | 8:07 AM
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Synopsis: The Union Budget 2026 emphasised expanding the health workforce beyond physicians. The planned addition of 1,00,000 Allied Health Professionals over five years, across disciplines, reflects a growing recognition that UHC is ultimately delivered by teams, not individuals.
The Union Budget’s health announcements arrive amid global uncertainty about Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Across regions, UHC progress has stalled due to fiscal pressures, ageing populations, workforce shortages, and rising expectations for quality and continuity of care.
In this context, India’s choices carry weight beyond its borders. With one-sixth of the world’s population, a rapidly ageing demographic, and growing influence in global health diplomacy, India’s health budget should not be analysed merely as a domestic fiscal instrument; it is a statement about what UHC can look like in a large, diverse, middle-income democracy.
Therefore, beyond the symbolic thresholds, health allocations should be examined from the perspective of moving India closer to becoming a global reference point for UHC in a rapidly transitioning world.
A defining feature of this budget is its emphasis on expanding the health workforce beyond physicians. The planned addition of 1,00,000 Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) over five years, across disciplines such as optometry, radiology, anaesthesia technology, and behavioural health, reflects a growing recognition that UHC is ultimately delivered by teams, not individuals.
Similarly, the proposal to train 150,000 multiskilled caregivers within a year, embedded within a broader care ecosystem for geriatric and allied services, signals a strategic response to population ageing and long-term care needs.
From a UHC perspective, this marks a pivot from access defined narrowly as facility availability toward access defined as continuity, appropriateness, and functional coverage across the life course. Few low- and middle-income countries have explicitly acknowledged caregiving and allied care as system-critical rather than residual or informal.
The success of the UHC rollout depends on systematically incorporating AHPs and caregivers into referral pathways, insurance benefits, and public funding, rather than treating them as separate cadres with uncertain career prospects. Building partnerships between industry and universities should be encouraged to improve workforce development and sustainability.
The focus on geriatric and allied care is a significant and welcome move. The idea of creating five Regional Medical Hubs that integrate healthcare, education, research, diagnostics, and rehabilitation could boost tertiary healthcare capacity, create jobs, and position India as a global provider of specialised medical services.
The budget aims to address this tension by presenting these hubs as mixed ecosystems rather than separate entities. Pluralism in culturally resonant systems can enhance acceptability and utilisation.
From a global perspective, the unanswered question is how India plans to systematically incorporate rare diseases, advanced therapies, and emergency trauma care into pooled financing arrangements. Expanding apex capacity is necessary, but not enough.
The global benchmark will be whether specialist capacity translates into district-level integration, workforce task-sharing, and sustained financing for community-based services.
In summary, the health budget reflects a shift toward system stewardship rather than isolated schemes. Its strengths lie in workforce diversification, acknowledgement of ageing and care needs, and cautious engagement with global health markets. Its limitations lie in the relative silence on financing architecture, entitlement expansion, and implementation governance across states.
This Union Budget does not yet define a finished UHC model, but it sketches the contours of one that could matter globally. If India complements its investment in capacity with reforms in financing, governance, and accountability, it has the opportunity not merely to scale services, but to demonstrate how Universal Health Coverage can evolve in large, diverse, and rapidly transitioning societies.
(Giridhara R Babu is a Professor of Population Medicine at the College of Medicine, Qatar University, Doha. Views are personal.)
