Telangana increases health outlay, but its share in the budget goes down

Telangana health sector government allocates ₹12,161 crores for the health department, just 8.2 percent more than last year.

BySumit Jha

Published Feb 07, 2023 | 9:00 AMUpdatedFeb 07, 2023 | 9:00 AM

Telangana Budget 2023 Health

The BRS government in Telangana never tires of emphasising the importance of the health sector. The numbers in the 2023-24 state budget, however, seem to suggest a waning interest.

Finance Minister T Harish Rao, who presented the state budget in the Assembly on Monday, 6 February,  announced an allocation of ₹12,161 crore for the Health Department, just 8.2 percent more than last year.

In the 2022-23 budget, the Health Department was allocated ₹11,237 crores, but it was a whopping 78.5 percent more than the figure of the year before.

What’s more, the ₹12,161 crore earmarked for 2023-24 constitutes only 4.1 percent of the total ₹2.92 crore outlay for the year. Last year, it was at 4.37 percent.

While the finance minister mentioned a slew of projects and programmes in his speech, except for the extension of the KCR Nutrition Kits scheme (with ₹200 crore set aside for them), none of them were new. Most of these projects and programmes are ongoing and in various stages of completion and implementation.

We did learn a few new things though: For instance, Finance Minister Harish Rao, who is also the health minister, informed the House that at the time of the formation of the state in 2014, there were only 1,400 oxygen beds. That number has increased by 20 times to 27,966. That’s certainly good news.

Related: How Telangana keeps an eye on rural healthcare system

A status report

Finance Minister Harish Rao said that Telangana government has taken up the construction of a Health City in Warangal of international standards. As part of this, the construction of a Super Specialty Hospital at an estimated expenditure of ₹1,100 crore and with a capacity of 2,000 beds is under, and a brisk pace, he said.

The government is determined to complete the construction and begin operations in the coming Financial year.

Repeating an earlier announcement, he said that the government has decided to establish a medical college in each district of the state with the objective of making medical facilities available even in the remotest areas of the state.

Related: Telangana has highest MBBS seats per lakh population

“In 2023, government has taken steps to establish nine new medical colleges at Nirmal, Asifabad, Bhupalpally, Jangaon, Kamareddy, Karimnagar, Khammam, Sircilla and Vikarabad. With this, the number of medical colleges in Telangana state will increase to 26,” said Harish Rao.

It is also proposed to establish nursing colleges attached to the medical colleges in each district.

The focus on medical and nursing colleges comes in the light of the fact that the Centre has not established a single such institution in the state since its creation.

In addition to the existing Basthi Dawakhanas, the government has taken a decision to extend these facilities to all the 50 towns in the state.

Motivated by the success of the Basthi Dawakhanas, chief minister decided to improve antenatal facilities in the state by upgrading its ANM (auxiliary nurse midwife) sub-centers into Palle Dawakhanas.

With this, better primary care facilities will be available to people living in the villages.

Related: Telangana to finish health-profiling of patients soon

From KCR Kits…

With the lofty objective of protecting the income foregone by women during their days of pregnancy, the government had introduced KCR Kit Scheme on June 2, 2017.

Another objective of this scheme was to ensure safe deliveries for poor pregnant women in government hospitals.

The government is providing 16 articles in the KCR Kit for the use of the child and mother. Under the scheme, 13.91 lakh women have received the benefit so far.

In 2015-16, only 30.5 percent of the deliveries used to take place in government hospitals. With the introduction of KCR Kit and strengthening of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Hospitals, deliveries in government hospitals have more than doubled to 61 percent.

To KCR Nutrition Kits

And now, in order to ensure that pregnant women do not suffer from malnutrition, the government has started KCR Nutrition Kit Scheme.

This scheme was launched as recently as 21 December, 2022, in Adilabad, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Jayashankar Bhupalapally, Jogulamba Gadwal, Komaram Bheem Asifabad, Mulugu, Nagar Kurnool and Vikarabad districts, where the incidence of anemia is the highest among pregnant women.

“The government has decided to extend the scheme covering all the 33 districts from this year,” said Harish Rao.

Nearly 4.52 lakh pregnant women are likely to benefit from this scheme every year.

Doctors’ association not happy

With the numbers suggesting that the government has taken its eye off the health sector, it is little wonder that healthcare professionals in the state are somewhat underwhelmed by the allocations and announcements in Budget 2023-24.

The Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) noted the obvious, saying there was little new apart from the allocation for the KCR Nutrition Kit programme, the Integrated Hospital Management Services & Diet charges and Aarogyasri health scheme grants-in-aid.

“Again, the government has grossly neglected primary health care, there is no separate allocation in the budget for increasing deficit PHCs and CHCs,” said HRDA president Dr K Mahesh Kumar in a statement.