Indus Valley Times

By A K Sahoo

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 13: Global pandemic Covid-19 has come as a catastrophe for human beings. It has claimed millions of lives across the globe. Our country and our state have suffered immensely due to the demonic disaster.

While the epicenter of Covid-19 crisis is in the livelihoods, its impact on health and food and nutrition security is significant.  This has led to a serious, multi-dimensional crisis with the marginalized sections, including migrants of the country’s population being affected the most.

It is evident that the upcoming 2020-21 financial year is a challenging year for the Odisha’s economy. The slowdown in economic activities due to crisis will affect resource realization.  Simultaneously, the need for budget allocation in the areas of social sectors such as health, education, WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) and food and nutrition security including agriculture has emerged as priority areas than ever before. In this situation, it becomes imperative for the state of Odisha to carve out the prioritized aspects where budgetary focus needs more attention.

Participating in Pre-Budget Consultation of the Odisha Budget and Accountability Centre (OBAC), CYSD, many experts on Tuesday suggested that the expenditure on social sector should go up to 50 percent of the total budget: The current pandemic has increased the need for health care, education, food and nutrition security, livelihoods security manifold, particularly for the vulnerable groups than ever before.

“The expenditure on social sector should be increased and be given top priority in the budget 2021-22.  As per the report State Finances: A Study of Budgets by Reserve Bank of India, Odisha’s social sector expenditure to total disbursement in 2020-21 (up to Oct 27,2020) is 45.3 per cent (AP – 52.5 per cent, Bihar – 56.7 per cent %, Jharkhand – 50.6 per cent, Chhatisgarh – 46.2 per cent). The expenditure on social sector should be increased to 50 percent of total budget to take care of emerging social sector needs,” the experts said. 

The experts also pleaded for more investments for primary health care.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has posed a major challenge before entire health system. Taking lessons from this pandemic, a future-ready health system needs to be thought of. The state has not achieved 8 percent of state budget for public health by 2020, as envisaged under the National Health Policy. The ratio stands at 5.13 percent during 2020-21 BE. Looking to the invariable public health needs, especially in the rural pockets, the public health expenditure should go up to 7-8 percent in total state budget 2021-22, focusing on primary health care,” the panelists said.

In the years 2020-21 and 2019-20, the increased budget allocation for public health are more inclined towards tertiary health care, leaving primary health care allocations flat. As per the Rural Health Statistics, 2018-19, the primary health care centers lack basic facilities (infrastructure, doctors, paramedics etc) which are critical in getting the desired health output. Again there are approximately 8000 hard to reach villages in the state, which are most remote and devoid of quality health care.

The experts also batted for one umbrella scheme for diagnosis and treatment.

“From time to time, varied schemes and programmes have been designed to provide diagnosis, and treatment at the public health facilities free of cost. To name a few, are NIDAN, JSSK, SAHAY, Ama Clinic, Sampurna and Niramay. Both the Union and state governments have declared free diagnosis, treatment and medicine at the public health facilities. Except the monetary benefit schemes such as JSY and MAMATA, all other schemes may be subsumed in to a single window for better transparency and accountability of services,” they said. 

The primary level institutions, as the experts pointed out, need to adapt WASH activities.

CYSD founder Jagadananda, coordinator Basanta Kumar Nayak, A Rabindra of WASHN, health expert Dr Aquinas Edassery, Prof Gouranga Chandra Nanda, Prabhat Kumar Mishra, Dr Satyapriya Rath and Nabanita participated in the consultation.TAGS: