NEW DELHI: The healthcare and pharma industry has pinned big hopes on the upcoming Union Budget to be announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1.
The industry expects the Government to provide tax incentives for both new and existing healthcare projects, push for infrastructure development and simplified regulations.
Dr Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, Senior Vice President, NATHEALTH and MD & CEO, Fortis Healthcare said, “India is amongst the most preferred destinations globally for medical tourism and therefore, increased policy support is required to encourage, and facilitate medical value travel to India, develop MVT as an organized sector. Another critical area is addressing the shortage of healthcare professionals – by identifying doctors, nurses and technical staff willing to work in Tier 2/3 cities and looking at non-traditional ways to double the number of doctors."
"…Further, the sector needs lower-cost financing through tax incentives for both existing and new healthcare projects. For new projects, the Government should provide a tax holiday period of 15 years and for existing projects, tax relief for 10 years as re-investment support. Declaring healthcare as a National Priority Sector and classifying it on the same lines as Agriculture (priority-sector lending), will give banks the flexibility to lend to private healthcare institutions, on longer tenures, at lower rates," Raghuvanshi said.
Sudarshan Jain, Secretary General, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance said, "The budget should outline supportive policies, simplified regulations, and simple GST norms to aid in the development of the pharmaceutical industry. Measures to facilitate the ease of doing business will increase investment and contribute to the industry's long-term growth."
"Viability gap funding by the Government is essential to set up hospitals in tier-1 and tier-2 cities, encouraging increased investment in the healthcare infrastructure. Uniform adoption of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is another imperative which calls for clearly defined delivery models for innovative modules developed by private players. We are also witnessing a significant impact on the cost of running a business which will affect the sustainability of MedTech organizations. If all payment backlogs both for providers and suppliers under insurance and public procurement are cleared, it would significantly improve the availability of healthcare infrastructure,” Dr Shravan Subramanyam, President, NATHEALTH said.
Meanwhile, Pratik Kumar, Country Director, Malaria No More India said "India has set an ambitious goal of eliminating malaria from the country by 2030."
While achievable, this road to elimination still stands steep - the country accounted for 79% of the malaria burden in the South-East Asia Region, the highest in the region, as highlighted by WHO's World Malaria Report 2022.
“We hope that the Union Budget 2023-24 prioritizes allocating sufficient resources to Malaria, enabling our nation to achieve the momentous goal and bring us closer to a 'MalariaMuktBharat!',” Kumar said.