How to use the Health budget: Bibek Debroy’s lessons from coronavirus crisis

Debroy also said that one of the lessons from the ongoing crisis is that a lot depends on decentralisation of governance as there is heterogeneity of governance in India.

Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) chairman Bibek Debroy on Monday said the COVID-19 pandemic has flagged the issue of health expenditure and reprioritisation of public expenditure is required keeping in view the paucity of resources.

Debroy also said that one of the lessons from the ongoing crisis is that a lot depends on decentralisation of governance as there is heterogeneity of governance in India. Speaking at the virtual ‘Statistics Day’ event of the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI), he said, “What COVID-19 has done is to flag the expenditure on health and efficiency of expenditure on health.

Given the paucity of resources, a switching of and reprioritisation of public expenditure is required not only on health but down to decentralisation.” Debroy said it is also important to get data as decentralised as possible.  The government has been celebrating the Statistics Day on June 29 every year, on the birth anniversary of Prof P C Mahalanobi, to popularise the use of statistics in everyday life and sensitise the public as to how statistics helps in shaping and framing policies.

The event was chaired by Union Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation Rao Inderjit Singh.

The theme of Statistics Day, 2020 was ‘Sustainable Development Goals SDG – 3 — (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) and SDG – 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls).