Sharpen focus on education and health this Budget, experts urge FM
social sectors Thursday called on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who chaired the customary pre-Budget consultation meeting, to further step up focus on health and education. They argued such a move will not just lead to greater ease of living but also bolster the economy's productive capacity.
Some of them also called for raising the budgetary spending on these critical social sectors, said a person aware of the deliberations.
The full Budget for FY25 will be presented next month.
Although the pandemic is behind us, the focus on the health sector shouldn't be diluted, he added. There were also suggestions to tightly monitor the implementation of all such social sector schemes, he added. Facilities at schools and hospitals need to be further improved and vacancies filled up on time, some of them said in the meeting. In the interim Budget for FY25 in February, the government had pegged the outlay for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare at ₹90,659 crore, up marginally from the FY24 budget estimate of ₹89,155 crore. This outlay also includes spending on health research.
As for education, the interim Budget for FY25 raised the allocation to Rs 1,20,628 crore, up almost 7% from the budget estimate for the previous year.
Earlier this month, the Confederation of Indian Industry had also called for raising the overall public expenditure (involving both the centre and states) on education to 6% of gross domestic product by FY31 from 2.8% budgeted for FY23. Similarly, it called for enhancing public spending on
