Health expenditure now at 1.84 pc of GDP, moving steadily to 2.5 pc: JP Nadda

New Delhi: Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Wednesday said the government's expenditure on healthcare has reached 1.84 per cent of GDP and is steadily moving towards the target of 2.5 per cent. In his reply to a discussion on the working of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Nadda said in 2013-14, the allocation of funds for healthcare was around Rs 38,000 crore and at present, it has reached Rs 99,000 crore or assume it to be Rs 1 lakh crore.

"In 2013-14, the government health expenditure, which includes state and the Centre, was 1.15 per cent, and when the policy was enunciated, it was 1.35 per cent, and now, it is 1.84 per cent of GDP, and we are going very steadily towards 2.5 per cent," Nadda said.

The National Health Policy 2017 has prescribed increasing government health Expenditure (GHE) as a share of GDP to 2.5 per cent by 2025.

The minister said that around 1.75 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs are functional around the country as the first contact point of the patient with the health institution.

The minister said the government has implemented National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS) in some Ayushman Arogya Mandir.

He said that under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana, the government has made an attempt to address regional imbalance and therefore, augmented affordable tertiary healthcare by opening 22 AIIMS and 75,000 new government medical colleges and undertaking their upgradation.