Given the gap between budgetary allocation and use, a parliamentary standing committee has asked the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (Ayush) to take steps to prevent underutilisation of funds under the National Ayush Mission (NAM) scheme. According to the data, the ministry was allocated Rs 1,200 crore for the mission in the Budgetary Estimate (BE) for FY24. The Revised Estimate (RE) for the year fell to Rs 815 crore, of which Rs 589 crore, or 74 per cent, has been spent till January.
The Budget outlay for health and well being is Rs 2.23 lakh crore in 2021-22 as against BE of Rs 94,452 crore and marks an increase of 137 per cent," she said while presenting 2021-22 Budget in the Lok Sabha.
Additional infrastructure for dining rooms in each of the school has been recommended.
Experts recommend awaiting the findings of the 2021 Census, which is yet to be conducted, before introducing population control policies.
"There has been a 0.05 percentage points decline in the share of allocation for child budget to the Union Budget from 2.35 per cent (2022-23 BE) to 2.30 per cent (2023-24 BE).
Women and children have been given short shrift with these crucial sectors facing substantive budgetary cuts, discovers Rashme Sehgal.
'The government is abdicating its responsibility on healthcare.' 'Just to start this scheme, it will take a minimum till October 2018 and elections are coming in 2019, so before that this can go into the dustbin.'
The aim of the mission is to accelerate the development of at least six vaccine candidates and ensure that they are licenced and introduced in market for emergency use at the earliest.
The decision to slash insurance coverage will have an impact on private health sector.
Elections are not won or lost by expounding on such macro-economic matters. For the aam admi, what matters in manifestos are promises that will improve their quality of life, notes Vinayak Chatterjee.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Centre's programmes of maternity benefit and Child Protection Services also got a major boost in the Budget.
Vijay has a lot of young and middle-aged women fans, but as voters, they are possibly now with the DMK, or remain with the AIADMK. Recapturing this constituency would have helped Vijay's political launch and the GOAT script and dialogues could have gone a long way in helping out. But the kind of script and screenplay and the unusually and equally unnecessary long run-time (3 hours, 3 minutes) that GOAT offers takes the film experience over the heads of those that are not familiar with secret agents and uranium theft in Tamil cinema, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Last year, the minister had proposed the compulsory rural postings for all MBBS students. The announcement met with stiff resistance.
Shortage of ICU beds, oxygen, ventilators, vaccines, doctors, nurses and crematorium space in India has dominated headlines around the world in the past few weeks with Covid-19 cases surging beyond control and the government failing to deliver. Yes, election rallies, Kumbh Mela, blatant flouting of social distancing and mask protocols coupled with a messy vaccination process are said to be responsible for the health crisis of colossal proportions that India is facing today. But an analysis of Budget speeches made by finance ministers over 75 years also offers a glimpse of how low on the priority list healthcare has featured for the political class and policy-makers, which is a significant reason for the current situation.
The Budget emphasises on capacity building and empowerment of marginalised sections of society including farmers.
The Budget is remarkably coherent.
As a result of the mass state-led scheme, the processes in the health insurance market could get simplified over time and become uniform
India has the capacity to store vaccines that may require a lower temperature in the range of -15 to -20 degrees Celsius and there are over 29,000 cold chain points (CCPs) across the country where vaccines are stored at the recommended temperatures, the Centre has told the Supreme Court.
The actual expenditure will only be marginally higher and hence, the multiplier effect will be muted.
Had Finance Minister Sitharaman thought a little more about the middle class, disadvantaged sections, and the poor who are struggling, it would have been an inclusive Budget that would have made history, notes Ramesh Menon.
The PM said that the Union Budget will accelerate the economic growth, financially empower every citizen and strengthen the foundation of the economy in the new decade.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
Former CAG Rajiv Mehrishi says Centre has held back a report he submitted to the President, to end what he called "a nightmare of accounts that militates against good governance".
The Budget will 'further reignite our growth engine, signalling the dawn of a prosperous future.'
Indian billionaires saw their combined fortunes more than double during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their count shot up by 39 per cent to 142, while the wealth of the ten richest is enough to fund school and higher education of children in the country for 25 years, a new study showed on Monday. In its annual inequality survey released on the first day of the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda summit, Oxfam India further said that an additional one per cent tax on the richest 10 per cent can provide the country with nearly 17.7 lakh extra oxygen cylinders, while a similar wealth tax on the 98 richest billionaire families would finance Ayushman Bharat, the world's largest health insurance scheme, for more than seven years. The COVID-19 pandemic saw a huge rush for oxygen cylinders and insurance claims during the second wave last year.
The bold decisions are part of the Congress 'Nav Sankalp' declaration that was adopted at the end of the three-day 'Chintan Shivir in Udaipur, indicating that the party has chosen to put its weight behind the young leadership after a prolonged old-versus-new tussle.
The United Nations owes India $110 million (over Rs 672 crore), the second highest outstanding payment to any country, for costs relating to peacekeeping operations and troops, a top UN official said.
While Rs 37,461.01 crore has been allocated for higher education, Rs 56,386.63 crore has been earmarked for school education.
Economy to grow by 7.2-7.5 per cent in second half of current fiscal, says FM.
Agri experts are meeting FinMin ministry officials on Monday to give their inputs on the Budget.
Education, jobs, health and more: Experts share their wishlist.
5G ambulances will not just allow remote consultation, but would also be able to transit data and video to hospitals in real time, saving precious time for critical patients. 5G technology would also support the development of new educational applications, improve agriculture productivity, and aid search and rescue missions with high resolution cameras in disaster recovery zones.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget.
The meetings with various ministries will go on till December 12, according to an office notice
Simple takeaways from the Union Budget 2015-16 and how it impacts your life
It is urgent that we break the silence around the 'M' word, one ward and gram panchayat at a time, so that women and girls -- irrespective of their financial capacity -- can demand the information and materials they need, says Archana Patkar.
Ending open defecation by 2019 will require changing minds, not just allocating money to build latrines for people that will either go unused or not be built at all.
The new government may enhance the Plan expenditure for 2014-15 by around Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion) in the Budget next month, which would be about 2 per cent higher than what was provided in the previous fiscal budget.
'In 2009 we had 741 new cases of polio. This was the highest in the world. We ran the most apolitical crusade ever. We had the support of every government. We were never short of funds. The central government gave us Rs 11,000 crore a year. In 2011 we had 42 new cases. From 42 to 0 was our most difficult phase,' Mission Director Anuradha Gupta tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar in an exclusive interview about India's monumental campaign to eradicate polio.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances