10,000 Additional Seats, Tax Exempt, And Infrastructure: What Union Budget Announced For Health Sector
While presenting the Union Budget 2025, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that 36 life-saving drugs have been fully exempted from basic customs duty. 37 more medicines and 13 new patient assistance programs have also been exempted from the basic customs duty. Six life-saving drugs have a five percent customs duty.
“To provide relief to patients, especially those suffering from cancer and rare diseases, I propose 36 life-saving drugs in fully exempted custom duties”, Sitharaman said while presenting her eighth consecutive Union Budget.
She also announced that by next year, 10,000 additional seats will be added in medical colleges and hospitals while 75,000 seats to be added in the next 5 years. She said the Centre will create additional infrastructure in five IITs started after 2024. The the Finance Minister also announced that IIT Patna’s hostel and other infrastructure capacities will be given a boost. The announcement came while Bihar is preparing for election.
“The total number of students in 23 IITs has increased by 100 per cent from 65,000 to 1.35 lakh in the past 10 years”, Sitharaman added.
It was also announced that 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs will be set up in next five years to cultivate scientific temper in young minds. Broadband connectivity will be provided to all government secondary schools and primary healthcare centres in rural areas.
Sitharaman also announced the Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 initiatives for nutritional support to more than 8 crore children, 1 crore pregnant women and lactating mothers all over the country. It also include about 20 lakh adolescent girls in aspirational districts and the north-east region.
During the 2024 Budget, the government had made custom duty exemptions and a reduction in GST rates on three anti-cancer medications – Trastuzumab, Osimertinib and Durvalumab.
India registered about 12 lakh new cancer cases and 9.3 lakh deaths in 2019, taking up the position as the second-highest contributor to the disease burden in Asia. The figure jumped to 13.9 lakh in 2020, which further soared to 14.2 lakh and 14.6 lakh in the years 2021 and 2022, respectively, as per a Lancet study,
