Given that Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers, anganwadi workers, and helpers are at the forefront of health care delivery at the grassroots level, the World Health Organization (WHO) has applauded February 1 Union Budget announcement on extending healthcare coverage to them under Ayushman Bharat.

Roderico H. Ofrin, WHO’s representative in India, said that various other health-related initiatives announced in the Budget – upgrading existing hospital infrastructure to increase medical colleges, harmonisation of maternal and child care implementation, introduction of a vaccination against human papillomavirus to prevent cervical cancer, and the expansion of the U-WIN platform to manage and intensify immunisation — will further strengthen systems and healthcare services across the country.

Budget 2024 live | February 1, 2024

“WHO welcomes investments in these areas and will continue to support the Government of India in achieving health for all and meeting its disease elimination goals, ” he added. 

Increasing medical colleges

Girdhar J. Gyani, founder director of the Association of Healthcare Providers (India) said that fortifying healthcare infrastructure by establishing more medical colleges and leveraging existing hospital facilities was a welcome move.

Also read: Where does the money come from and where is it allocated?

The Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD), on the other hand, said that it was awaiting the Budget fine print to check whether the Department of Pharmaceuticals’ recommendations with regard to the sector have been addressed. The Budget has seemingly fallen short of expectations for addressing the rising import graph of medical devices and soaring import bills worth over ₹63,200 crore ($8 billion), said AiMeD forum coordinator Rajiv Nath.

FICCI president Anish Shah said that the Interim Budget was a clear and outcome-based continuum towards Viksit Bharat, referring to the government’s ambition to transform India into a developed country by 2047. “It brings together growth, climate, and social empowerment, while maintaining a careful balance between current investment rate and fiscal discipline,” he said.

Clean green hydrogen energy generation.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Underlining a commitment to accelerate the Indian economy’s transition to one powered by green energy, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech on Wednesday mentioned a slew of schemes aimed at promoting clean energy and sustainable living.

Green energy was among the ‘Saptarishi’ or seven guiding lights Ms. Sitharaman mentioned in her address that would steer India through ‘Amrit Kaal’ (next 25 years).

She said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had earmarked ₹35,000 crore for “priority capital investment”, though neither her speech nor the Budget documents provided more clarity on it.

Following up on the government’s recent announcement of giving a push to ‘green hydrogen’ and promoting renewable energy projects, the Minister said battery energy storage systems with a capacity of 4,000 megawatt hours will be “supported” with viability gap funding to encourage investment.

The Budget also waived customs duty on capital goods and machinery for lithium-ion battery manufacturing. The move is expected to make electric vehicles and storage systems cheaper.

Boost for solar projects

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has received a budgetary allocation of ₹10,222 crore, a 45% hike from the ₹7,033 crore it expects to spend in the current financial year. The most significant hikes in the Ministry’s programmes are for ‘off-grid’ solar projects, on which the government is expected to spend ₹61 crore in the current fiscal but has budgeted ₹360 crore for the coming financial year.

India had a target of installing 100 gigawatt (GW) of solar power projects by 2022 but has only installed 63 GW. Off-grid solar projects constitute less than 5% of the target. The allocation for solar power expected to be supplied to the grid has been raised to ₹4,970 crore, up from the ₹3,469 crore expected to be spent by March 2023. The National Green Hydrogen Mission – a ₹19,000-crore programme to produce, use and supply hydrogen from renewable energy sources – has been allotted ₹297 crore.

3 key measures

“For the budget allocation of ₹35,000 crore (about $4 billion) to start catalysing the nearly $30 billion in energy transition finance required annually by India for its net zero future, three types of measures will be needed: risk guarantees to reduce the cost of capital for low-carbon investments in the country; demand aggregation measures as has been done for LED lighting and electric buses; and viability gap financing for hydrogen electrolysers and offshore wind as announced for battery storage,” Ulka Kelkar, director, World Resources Institute, said in a statement.

Ms. Sitharaman also mentioned a ‘green credit’ programme to be notified under the Environment (Protection) Act. “This will incentivise environmentally sustainable and responsive actions by companies, individuals and local bodies, and help mobilise additional resources for such activities,” she said. “Building on India’s success in afforestation, the Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats and Tangible Incomes (MISHTI) will be taken up for mangrove plantation along the coastline and on salt pan lands,” she added.

An official in the Environment Ministry, who declined to be identified, told The Hindu that such a programme would be “sweeping” and involve multiple Ministries. “It’s still being finalised. However, it will involve several existing schemes that incentivise emission reductions by industries or the growing of plantations in barren land [that become stores of carbon over time].”

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