Press Release
Soham Chaudhari
The IMPRI Center for Human Dignity and Development, IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, hosted an interactive panel discussion on “Population, Health, and Union Budget 2026-27” as part of IMPRI’s 7th Annual Series of Thematic Deliberations and Analysis of the Union Budget 2026-27. The meeting brought together specialists, frontline workers, and academics to examine the budget numbers and their impact on India’s health services, the ageing population, and wider human development.
Opening remarks – stability instead of change
Dr. Manorama Bakshi, Director and Head of Healthcare and Advocacy, Consocia Advisory; Founder and Director, Trilok Raj Foundation (TRF); Visiting Senior Fellow, IMPRI. She opened, noting that the headline health budget rose ten per cent in nominal terms to ₹1.06 lakh crore, a “symbolic and fiscal milestone” because it is the first time the figure has crossed the one-lakh-crore line. After roughly eight per cent medical inflation and significant population growth are taken into account, the real gain is small.
Dr. Bakshi said the budget is aimed at keeping the present system running rather than at building major new capacity. She welcomed the Bio Pharma Shakti plan, extra training for allied health workers and the renewed attention to elder care but stressed that the allocation still treats health as a social cost instead of as core economic infrastructure.
A Patient Advocate’s Direct Assessment
Dr. Urvashi Prasad, Former Director, Office of the Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog, gave a blunt critique that she called “brutally honest”. A ten per cent increase, she argued, is too small when India is nearing the tenth year of its 2017 National Health Policy and is still far from the pledge to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on health.Nearby countries devote four to six per cent of GDP to this sector, while New Delhi keeps viewing health as “expense” instead of as a prerequisite for reaping the demographic dividend.
Dr. Prasad spoke of her own lung cancer, linked to environmental exposure even though she had followed a healthy lifestyle. She called the cuts in pollution control funds “delusional” and said it is indefensible to praise a “stable” health budget while people in the “pollution hub of the world” breathe air that is almost unbreathable and drink water laced with uranium. “I am unaware of anyone with a superior lifestyle to mine, yet I contracted lung cancer owing to air pollution,” she stated, because allocations are meaningless when the air and water that shape public health are poisonous.
The customs duty waiver on three cancer drugs was dismissed as largely symbolic, as it reduces treatment costs by only approximately five to ten per cent. This constitutes a minimal reduction for patients who incur costs of multiple lakh rupees monthly for targeted therapy and immunotherapy, treatments that remain largely excluded from coverage by Ayushman Bharat (PMJAY) and most private insurers. India imports hundreds of oncology molecules, the majority of which did not receive comparable relief.
She demanded “rigorous evidence” instead of “nationalism” to back the promotion of AYUSH, noting cases where patients abandoned evidence-based care for untested herbal remedies after receiving conflicting messages. She insisted we must rest on data, not belief. In closing, she said that while Bio Pharma Shakti and wider clinical trials look good on paper, India’s record of flawed trial conduct and the continued underfunding of primary care show that the budget remains stuck in incrementalism when transformational change is needed.
Efficiency is paramount, alongside the movement of capital.
Dr. Praveen Aggarwal, Co-Founder and Director of Consocia Advisory, critiqued the flow and utilization of healthcare funds in India. He pointed out that although the overall allocation has grown, families still bear half of all health spending out of pocket. A key flaw, he said, is “structural mismatch”: Ayushman Bharat funds lie partly unused in multiple states even as households wipe out savings on care. The problem is not the size of the pool, but also the speed and efficiency of its use.
To fix this he urged a shift to performance-based budgeting, with central releases tied to how quickly and well states spend the money. He cited Tamil Nadu and Odisha as models of prudent and swift execution. To draw private capital and services into underserved rural areas he proposed two measures – extend Production Linked Incentives to health infrastructure in small towns and rural hubs and change rules so that trained technicians may run dialysis units where no resident nephrologist exists, widening access to life-saving care.
Demographic change and youth health
Dr. Varun Sharma, Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at the Population Foundation of India, contrasted the budget figures with India’s shifting demography. The demographic dividend window will start to close around 2031 – targeted investment in the young is urgent. Central health spending now amounts to only ₹745 per citizen each year and support for key programmes has flatlined. The “family welfare” line and the Reproductive and Child Health flexi pool that sustains rural clinics have seen no real rise.
Suicides among the young are climbing and funding for the National Tele Mental Health Programme has fallen, a breach of duty toward a clear crisis. Dr. Sharma called for a separate budget line devoted solely to the sexual and reproductive health needs of India’s roughly 365 million young people.
Vulnerable groups and road safety
Prof. Sanghmitra Sheel Acharya, Professor at the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, works on injuries from road crashes, a burden that falls heaviest on the young and the poor and erodes human capital while pushing families into debt. Trauma centre funds help but she argues that prevention must come first – safer road design – dedicated lanes, crash barriers – and strict, well-publicised enforcement of traffic rules. Districts that combine caste marginalisation, gender disparity and remoteness show low use of safety funds. Road safety, she concludes, is a question of social justice that depends on careful, equity-focused implementation so that policies reach the vulnerable people they are meant for.
Nutrition and Human Development – A Critical Analysis
Dr. Shobha Suri, Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation’s Health Initiative, states that good nutrition builds strong human capital. She concedes that the government pays attention to the issue but calls the latest budget rise for nutrition schemes “tokenism”. This small rise fails to dent the high rates of stunting, wasting and anaemia that still burden India.
Figures show the gap – the Centre would need to spend between ₹38,000 crore and ₹44,000 crore on proven nutrition measures, almost twice the present ₹23,000 crore.
Money is only one hurdle – district offices lack staff and skills to use even the sums they receive. Anganwadi workers, the key delivery agents, earn too little and handle too many families – service suffers. Joint action among the Health, Water, Sanitation and Social Protection departments exists only on paper. To turn promises into results, every department needs shared, numbered targets that appear in budgets and reports.
The Budget and Public Health – A Macro Perspective
Mr. Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, Senior Research Consultant at the Chintan Research Foundation, reads the budget through a macro lens on the health care vertical. The government is bound to curb its deficit – room for extra social spending is tight.
He notes the official focus on mental health and the new Bio Pharma mission and finds both valid. But the old pattern persists – most funds still flow to tertiary hospitals while primary care stays starved. A strong health system rests on village-level prevention – the tilt must reverse.
In Bio Pharma, global drug firms plough fifteen to twenty per cent of sales into research – Indian companies trail far behind – state help is warranted.
Conclusion
In the end, Mr Mukhopadhyay calls the health budget sufficient but not transformative. To alter the country’s health, the allocation must shift decisively to primary care, and the government must write into law that health is a basic right that guarantees universal access and firm public funds.
The Union Budget 2026-27 received a mixed report from the panel. They agreed it shows steady intent rather than bold change. Larger training budgets, new mental health measures and a plan to create domestic capacity for strategic drugs were judged useful. But the budget still fails to tackle the main problems that hurt ordinary people – heavy personal payments for care, thin primary care networks and uneven implementation of schemes that exist. The panel warned that health spending must stop being filed only under welfare – it should be viewed as the bedrock of the nation’s future productivity and prosperity.
IMPRI’s 7th Annual Series of Thematic Deliberations and Analysis of Union Budget 2026-27
IMPRI 7th Annual Series of Thematic Deliberations and Analysis of Union Budget 2026-27
Population, Health, and Union Budget 2026-27
Acknowledgement: This article is written by Soham Chaudhari at IMPRI Research Intern.
