Union budget has more fund to reduce the shortage in Medical manpower

The acute shortage of trained medical manpower has finally received some attention. The finance minister increased allocation for human resources in health from Rs 62 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 323 crore in 2010-11. India is short by six lakh doctors, 10 lakh nurses and two lakh dental surgeons.

The overall allocation for the health ministry increased by 14% — from Rs 19,534 crore to Rs 22,300 crore for 2010-11. Programmes to combat cancer, diabetes, mental health and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) also received a major push. While allocation for cancer research increased from Rs 77 crore to Rs 155 crore, the mental health programme has nearly doubled, to over Rs 103 crore. Cancer kills 50 people in India every hour while 7% of the country's adult population is estimated to be suffering from mental health problems.

Allocation for the national programme for prevention of diabetes, CVDs and stroke have tripled to Rs 90 crore. Pranab Mukherjee announced that an annual health survey to prepare the health profile of all districts will be conducted in 2010-11 to benefit the NRHM. Strengthening of district hospitals has also been taken seriously with the allocation going up from Rs 36 crore to a whopping Rs 200 crore.

Some experts are unhappy. Public health expert Anand Phadke said government had committed to allocate about 2% of GDP to healthcare. "But in the last five years, the increase has just been about 0.9% to 1.1%."

Biotech bets: The hike in weighted deduction on in-house R&D expenditure from 150% to 200%, the inclusion of expenses on clinical trials and product patent registration under the weighted deduction scheme as well as increase in weighted deduction on payments made to national laboratories and other research institutions to 175% from 125% is expected to leave more cash in the hands of the largely R&D-driven biotech companies to pump back into innovation.

"The enhancement of weighted deduction on R&D is really great news. However, most of the R&D sops may end up benefiting pharma companies more than pure-play biotech firms," said Villoo Morawala-Patell, founder and CMD, Avesthagen. The R&D sops would give biotech firms a definite global edge, feels Rajesh Jain, joint managing director, Panacea Biotech.