The Modi government hails India’s role in the world as a ‘Vishwaguru’ but compared to more advanced nations like Japan, South Korea and the US, India spends the least on promoting research and innovation.
Authors
Deepanshu Mohan, Associate Professor of Economics and Director, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Aniruddh Bhaskaran, research analyst, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Hemang Sharma, research analyst, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Soumya Marri, research analyst, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Malhaar Kasodekar, research analyst, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Bilquis Calcuttawala, research analyst, Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Summary
This article looks more specifically at the Narendra Modi government’s fiscal policy towards social welfare and the development sector.
Healthcare and education
The Union public expenditure on healthcare in India was hovering around 1.2% of GDP since 2014. It was only around 2020-2021 that the overall expenditure rose above 2%. This was largely because of COVID-19-related spending that was temporal and did little to improve the overall medical (non-COVID-19) infrastructure.
Keep aside the ‘state vs Union’ constitutionality of ‘who spends on healthcare and education’ – the Union government has spent sub-par on these areas for far too long and expects far more from the states on the subject of supporting long term fiscal outlays.
The figure above shows the public expenditure on healthcare since FY 2014-15. The trend line has a measurable slope of 0.1154, suggesting that the increase in year-to-year expenditure levels to 0.1154%, and that too appears from a disruptive rise in Covid related spending done in 2020-21. Compared to most well performing emerging market economies, India still spends the least on healthcare, particularly on a per-capita basis. Japan spends around 9% of GDP and Brazil, another developing country, spends around 4%.
Published in: The Wire
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