Charted: Why India’s budget 2021 must seriously amp up healthcare spending

While finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman navigates the obstacle course between fiscal deficit and economic stimulus, her announcements for India’s healthcare sector will be closely watched. In the grips of that pandemic that has infected more than 10 million Indians, the central government is expected to increase its spending on healthcare to ramp up infrastructure. “Health and investment in health is going to be critical, not only to keep our lives safer but also to make our health-related expenditure more predictable, for people will not be spending for health out of their pocket,” Sitharaman had said in November, during a conference hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry, a non-governmental trade advocacy group.