Odisha Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari on Friday presented a budget of Rs 2,30,000 crore for 2023-24 fiscal in the Assembly, with an allocation of Rs 16,048 crore in the health sector in the state, which is an increase of about 27 percent over previous year and about three times of the allocation in 2017-18.
The provisions under the Administrative Expenditure and Programme Expenditure under the Health and Family Welfare department are Rs 3,725 crore and Rs 12,031 crore respectively.
In the budget, the government has made an allocation of Rs 750 crore for Ama Hospital Yojana. Under this scheme, as many as 147 hospitals will see a transformation in a period of one year.
Under this yojana, the physical health infrastructure, basic patient amenities and service delivery system in the public health facilities like Community Health Centers, Sub-District Hospitals and District Headquarters Hospitals will be upgraded.
Similarly, Mukhyamantri Swasthya Seba Mission has also received a major thrust in the budget as an outlay of Rs 3,300 crore has been made for it. In 2023-24, Kalahandi Medical College is to be made functional, followed by in Talcher, Phulbani and Jajpur in subsequent phases.
At the same time, an allocation of Rs 1,400 crore has been made for the redevelopment of SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, the premier health institution of the state. Additionally, while Rs 71 crore has been provided towards diet, Rs 646 crore and Rs 110 crore have been provided towards outsourcing of services under NIRMAL and procurement of equipment respectively.
In the budget presented by Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari, 108 ambulance service has also been taken care of. An allocation of Rs 250 crore has been made for this essential service. In the coming days, 236 more ambulances will be added to the existing fleet to improve the service.
Similarly, in the budget, an outlay of Rs 211 crore has been made. With this, 11 centres in three phases will be established to provide cancer care and palliative care to the people.
As the government’s aim is to ensure that all the public health facilities have the required the number of doctors and paramedics, over 5000 doctors and 9000 nurses and paramedics are expected to be recruited this year.
Similarly, the financial assistance under the Harischandra Sahayata has been increased from Rs 2000 to Rs 3000 for rural areas and from Rs 3000 to Rs 4000 in urban areas.
(Reported by Harihar Chand, OTV)