In the Union Budget 2025, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced a slew of good initiatives for the healthcare sector in the country. In her eighth consecutive Union Budget presentation, the Finance Minister has allocated Rs. 99,857 crore for the healthcare sector in 2025, a healthy increase of almost 10 per cent over the previous year’s allocation of Rs. 90,958 crore. The Budget focuses on expanding medical education, strengthening cancer treatment facilities, making essential medicines more affordable, and improving healthcare accessibility across the country. The Budget proposes complete basic customs duty exemption on 36 life-saving medicines and concessional customs duty of 5 per cent for six more medicines. The move is expected to be significant in reducing the prices of medicines for cancer, rare diseases and other severe chronic diseases. To strengthen cancer care infrastructure, the government has proposed to establish day care cancer centres in all district hospitals over the next three years. In the 2025-26 fiscal year alone, 200 such centres will be set up, ensuring early diagnosis and timely treatment for cancer patients across the country. In the Budget, the Finance Minister has announced that to enhance the availability of doctors in the country, 10,000 additional seats will be added this year in medical colleges, towards the goal of adding 75,000 seats in the next 5 years. Of course, exemption of basic customs duty on life saving drugs, day care centres in district hospitals and adding medical seats are booster shots for the healthcare sector in the country. The full exemption of customs duty on 36 life-saving drugs is a praiseworthy policy shift which will significantly reduce the cost of treatment for severe illnesses, easing the financial burden on lakhs of families across the country. With these bold measures, Budget 2025 positions healthcare as a top priority, reinforcing the government’s commitment to affordable treatment, robust medical education, and a stronger domestic pharmaceutical sector.
In her Budget speech, Sitharaman has also announced that medical tourism and ‘Heal in India’ initiative will be promoted in partnership with the private sector along with capacity building and easier visa norms. To implement private sector driven Research, Development and Innovation initiative announced in the last Budget, the Budget this year has proposed allocation of Rs. 20,000 crore. The second Gene Bank with 10 lakh germplasm lines will be set up for future food and nutritional security. This will provide conservation support to both public and private sectors for genetic resources. Besides, the government will set up an Export Promotion Mission, with sectoral and ministerial targets, driven jointly by the Ministries of Commerce, MSME, and Finance. It will facilitate easy access to export credit, cross-border factoring support, and support to MSMEs to tackle non-tariff measures in overseas markets. To promote domestic production of technical textile products including medical textiles at competitive prices, the Budget proposes to add two more types of shuttle-less looms to the list of fully exempted textile machinery. All said and done, much more could have been done. The medical devices industry is totally disappointed over the Budget as its expectations, many of which had been supported by the Department of Pharmaceutical too as an investment enabler under the National Medical Device 2023 policy, find no mention in the Budget speech. Likewise, the R&D tax deduction should have been given attention and re-introduced. In fact, this would have provided pathways for innovation on the pharmaceutical front, especially in the present scenario where new drug pipelines are drying. Over all, the Budget 2025 is a step in right direction for the healthcare sector in the country.
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