New Delhi, March 1: Even with a budgetary increase of 22% over last year’s health sector allocations at Rs 12, 546 for 2006-07 and additional allocations to National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) at Rs 8, 207 crore, India’s public expenditure on health remains around 0.6 % of the GDP of Rs 39 lakh crore. The private sector expenditure formed about 80% of the total Rs 1,03,000 crore on healthcare services in 2005-06.
The CMP advocates that a minimum of 2% of GDP should be spent on health. The latest National Economic survey of India for 2006-07 also tells the government spend 2% to 3 % of the GDP on health.
According to World Health Report 2005, the public expenditure for health by the India is just 21.3% of the total health care spends. In China, the corresponding figure was 33.7% while in the US it is 44.9%. Sri Lanka spends 48.7%, with Thailand footing a whopping 69.7%.
Government’s health spends are among the lowest in the world. China spends around 2% of its GDP on health. The UK does it at 6% while the US spends around 16%. Even countries like Nepal and Bangladesh spend about 1.5 % and 1.6% of their GDP on health respectively.
