Health sector allocation goes up
Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Thursday proposed 5.63 per cent of the total budget outlay for health services and family welfare sector for fiscal year 2019-20, which was 5 per cent in the outgoing budget.
Mustafa proposed Tk 25,732 crore allocation in total for the health sector – Tk 19, 944 crore for health services division and Tk 5,788 crore for the health education and family welfare division – which was in total up from Tk 22,336 crore in FY2018-19.
Besides, he proposed Tk 3,732 crore allocation for health programmes which will be run by 12 other ministries and divisions.
In total, the allocation for health in FY 2019-20 is Tk 29,464 crore, which is 1.02 per cent of GDP and 5.63 per cent of total budget allocations, Mustafa said in his budget proposal in parliament.
The finance minister proposed Tk 9,937 crore for health sector from ADP, which was up from Tk 8,261 crore from outgoing fiscal.
Finance minister proposed exemptions and concessionary rate of duties of some pharmaceutical raw materials including that of cancer medicines.
Moreover, he proposed to decrease regulatory duty from 20 per cent to 10 per cent on import of liquid Oxygen, Nitrogen, Argon and Carbon Dioxide for making these lifesaving gases available to the poor patients at low cost.
Mustafa in his speech said, ‘the government has been working with dedication and sincerity to develop a healthy and energetic population by ensuring quality health services, nutrition, affordable and quality family planning.’
He said the government will construct a 1,000-bed super specialised ward and a one-point check-up center, introduce afternoon health services, and construct a cancer building to modernise the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University.
Besides, a world class bone-marrow transplant unit will be established at the university, together with vertical expansion of outpatient buildings to enhance the scope of services for general patients.
He said the government has undertaken a plan to establish a medical university in each division in the country to improve the quality of health education.
Besides, he said Institutes of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences will be established at the campuses of eight medical colleges in the country.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
