The Budget is just a week away, and analysts, the public and industry sectors have different expectations from the government. In the first week of February, the BJP government will present its last full budget ahead of the 2024 general elections. To know what changes people are expecting in this year’s budget, FinancialExpress.com conducted a poll of users and asked readers multiple questions revolving around the budget. One of the most important of them was people’s expectations for the Education and Healthcare sector. Higher allocation towards rural healthcare to increase affordability and accessibility of healthcare services is expected along with increased allocation for education, to improve the overall quality of education and infrastructure in schools and universities.
What should be the government’s biggest priority in the upcoming Budget 2023?
A majority of 45% voters voted for Health Care and Education while 32.3% voted for Infrastructure spending and 22.7% voted in favor of containing fiscal deficit and boosting FDI. Now for the upcoming financial year, people expect that government spending on both sectors will increase and there will be supportive policies, simplified regulations, simple GST norms for the pharmaceutical industry and steps will be taken to promote the use of technology in education, such as the digitalization of education systems.
Should the government increase public expenditure on healthcare?
The healthcare sector is expecting a drastic shift in government spending, 43.7% of voters said Yes, to 4% of GDP, 42.3% voted Yes, to 2% of GDP and 14.1% voted No. In the financial year 2022-2023, Rs 1.04 lakh crore was allocated for the education sector while Rs 86,606 crore was allocated for the healthcare sector. People are expecting higher budget outlay and separate fund allocations for R&D, formulations, and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) Incentives to encourage innovation and increase expenditure on R&D.
