Quote by Mr. R. Udayan Lahiry, Co-founder & Managing Director, Medica Group of Hospitals Pvt Ltd on Union Budget 2023-24:

“We welcome the Government’s emphasis on establishing new nursing colleges, as this will improve the nurse-patient ratio and be a positive step toward Universal Health Coverage. Furthermore, making medical research facilities in select ICMR Labs available for research by public and private medical colleges, as well as by the private sector R&D teams for collaborative research and innovation is also a welcome step towards the growth and development of the Indian healthcare sector. It is also encouraging for healthcare service providers to know that the Government has emphasized strengthening the multidisciplinary courses for medical devices in existing institutions since we feel that this will secure the supply of skilled manpower of the future to drive technological advancements in the healthcare sector. Also, the renewed focus of the Government to eliminate Sickle Cell Anemia by 2047 through collaborative efforts of central ministries and state governments is extremely relevant today as it coincides with our country’s firm motto of eliminating infectious diseases like lymphatic filariasis by 2027,.tuberculosis by 2025 and Kala Azar by this year itself. Overall, the union budget has captured a lot of pertinent areas of the healthcare sector and it would have been even more beneficial for the sector if the government would have addressed the mechanism to avail GST input credit”.