Budget 2018: A significant step forward, says ICICI Lombard's MD & CEO Mr. Bhargav Dasgupta
The Union Budget 2018 was announced amid the backdrop of path breaking measures like demonetization and introduction of GST last year. The announcements made in the budget indicate that the Government has rightly focused on targeting the key enabling areas of agriculture, education, health, power and women empowerment. Further, it has shown fiscal prudence by limiting the fiscal slippage from the target set earlier.
One of the key areas that policy makers have rightly focused on is in terms of providing health cover to our citizens. The launch of the National Health Protection Scheme is a significant step forward from the mass health schemes launched in the past. By providing a health cover of Rs. 5 lakhs per family, it takes account the on-ground reality in terms of rising cost of medical inflation and the need to adequately cover Indians from health-related hazards. For long, there have been discussions on introducing Universal Health Cover and this new scheme does show the Government’s willingness to move forward in this direction. As India’s aspiring population looks forward to a better quality of life, it is imperative that they are adequately covered especially on the health side. While this scheme should provide health cover to around 40% of India’s population, we believe that policy makers will work towards designing the scheme keeping governance and sustainability in mind.
Source: Business Standard