Budget 2022: Nearly half of citizens want health to be top priority, says survey

With the third Covid wave still having the country in its grip, nearly half of the citizens who participated in a survey wanted the health sector to be the top focus area for the next year’s budget to be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday.

New Delhi: With the third Covid wave still having the country in its grip, nearly half of the citizens who participated in a survey wanted the health sector to be the top focus area for the next year’s budget to be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday. According to a survey conducted by the community networking platform Local Circles, nearly half (47%) of the respondents demanded the health sector to be the top focus area in the Union Budget.

It is natural as India is the second most affected country in the world after the USA both in terms of Covid infections and death caused by the deadly SarS-CoV-2 virus which was first discovered in November 2019 from the Wuhan region of China. The novel coronavirus and its variants have killed more than 4,95,000 people in the country and more than 5.67 million people worldwide since the beginning of the outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic.

What do people want from the budget?

According to the survey, 47% of more than 9,500 respondents said that the health sector should be the top priority on the social front. The health sector was followed by the education sector and ability to get online education as nearly 20% of the respondents wanted the government to focus on the education sector which has been badly hit by the restrictions and lockdowns that were imposed to curb the community spread of the virus.

Six per cent of respondents preferred a clean environment above all other sectors, as they demanded that the government should accord top priority to clean air. An equal number of respondents demanded that the government should give the maximum focus to the issue of women and child safety on the social front, while 13% of respondents other areas to be the top focus area for this year’s budget on the social front.

Meanwhile, a small percentage of the respondents, 4% of the total 9,541 respondents who answered this question did not have an opinion on the issue.

The second Covid wave fueled by the Delta variant of the virus, which ravaged the country during April-May last year, exposed India’s inadequate preparedness to deal with a sudden spike in demand for health services. In absence of any support, desperate care gives resorted to social media, particularly to micro-blogging platform Twitter, seeking medicines, oxygen cylinders and concentrators and admission in hospitals for their loved ones.

Demand for better health services in rural areas

The majority of citizens who participated in the survey said that the Centre should expand Primary and Community Health Centers (PHCs and CHCs) in the rural areas, which will not only address the shortage of these centres across rural areas but can act as the first response to meet the emergency needs of the villagers during any future pandemic.

"Given the isolation need for the villagers, citizens believe that the Government should create a National Mission to convert Panchayat Ghar into isolation centres with basic infrastructures like beds and toilets,” said the survey. According to the survey, people wanted the government to strengthen the health care facilities at the district and Panchayat level so that not only a future Covid wave could be handled in a much better way but these centres should also work to ensure the general well-being of the people after the pandemic.

The respondents also demanded that the government should fund and ensure the availability of top quality masks such as N-95 and KN-95 to the people if they are not able to procure them.