Expectations for health policy in budget 18-19

Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India details about the policy directions for health sector and family planning in India

For India, the financial year 2017-18 was promising on policy directions for the health sector in general and for family planning in particular. The fact that greater investments in health will impact India’s GDP by increasing productivity over the long term is being finally acknowledged by the government, as evident from the stated goal in the new National Health Policy 2017, which envisages increasing public health spending from 1.15% of GDP to 2.5% of GDP by 2025. The other positive development was the renewed commitment by the government to invest three billion dollars by 2020 towards family planning programme at the 2017 Family Planning Summit in London. These commitments are not only an effort to achieve Universal Health Coverage but will also strengthen India’s commitment to ensure universal access to family planning services by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While the recognition for higher investments in family planning is encouraging, the challenge for the government  remains in addressing the three major causes that prevent the translation of commitments into results – i) inadequate budgetary allocations for family planning, ii) poor coordination between the centre and states in the planning process, and iii) emphasis on target-driven measures that are in contradiction to India’s commitment to population stabilisation through voluntary and informed choice and consent of citizens.

The family planning (FP) component receives merely 4% of the total budget available under the National Health Mission’s Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Flexi pool. Analysis of data from the Financial Management Report (FMR) shows that only 60.7% of the funds available for family planning were spent in the financial year 2016-17. Further examination also shows the skewed allocations for FP which does not promote important policy decisions such as promoting spacing methods or improving the quality of care. 64% of the FP budget was allocated to terminal and limiting methods of contraception, while just 3.7% was allocated for spacing. Due to shortcomings in implementation, 40% of the allocations for spacing methods were not utilized in 2016-17 which is a major concern.

Government needs to provide adequate funding to improve the quality of family planning services and boost demand for family planning through better awareness and access. The Population Foundation of India calls on the government to match its commitments with adequatebudgetary allocations and its effective spending. Investments in family planning now will not only be in line with its intended policy directions, but will also bear positive dividends for the country’s future and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.