Analysis of Healthcare Budget & Spending on Public Health & Family Welfare in India

The main aim of this research paper is to evaluate the budget and spending by the union as well as state governments in India on public health and family welfare. It also brought to fore, the density of healthcare professionals in India. This study had also compared healthcare spending and the density of healthcare professionals in India with the other economiesin the world. The researcher had tried to analyze the per capita trends of spending on health and family welfare by the union government over the past 10 years as well.The researcher had analyzed the health and family welfare spending scenario across various states of India on a per capita basis. It was found that the states which spent more on health and family welfare had better key healthcare indicators and were more economically developed. It was observed that, public spending on healthcare in Indiawas only 1.5% of its GDP and that India had only 0.8 medical doctors for every 1000 inhabitants living in the country. The main reason for India spending less on the healthcare sector is that traditionally 90% of the total government expenditure has been revenue in nature. IMF has said in its annual Article IV reports that India’s poor public health was the 12th most important hurdle for ease of doing business, ahead of crime, tax regulations and policy instability.