Tk 17,516 crore proposed for health and family welfare

Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith today proposed an outlay of Taka 17,516 crore for the health and family welfare in the proposed national budget for the fiscal 2016-17 beginning from 1st July.

The revised budget for the ministry was Taka 14,840 crore for fiscal 2015-16, according to the budget speech of the finance minister, who placed the national budget before the parliament consecutively for eight times and 10th in his lifetime.

"I have already mentioned that we have put in place 13,126 community clinics. In order to take health services to the doorsteps of rural poor and marginalized people, we have plans to open another 235 community clinics in phases," he said in his budget speech at the Jatiya Sangsad here.

Muhith said the government has been implementing 'Health, Population and Nutrition Sector Development Programme (HPNSDP) in order to develop and expand health infrastructure in the country. A new sector development is also underway, he said.

In addition to functional community clinics, Muhith said, provision of telemedicine has also been started in all districts and 482 upazila hospitals. "Providing health services through telemedicine service centres and videoconferencing at district and upazila levels will continue." 

The finance minister, who expressed his unhappiness over the alleged abuse of incentives given to local pharmaceuticals producers, said there was an allegation against pharmaceutical companies that they were somewhat exploiting the benefits government provided them to encourage medicine productions locally. 

"We are aware of these issues and will take necessary actions as per legal provisions," he cautioned.

Muhith also suggested an increase of tax and customs duty on tobacco products. He proposed to fix the price of the 'lowest slab' of cigarette at Tk23 from existing Tk 18 and increase the supplementary duty rate by two percent to 50 percent. 

He, however, left the issue of price fixation for the 'medium' and 'high' segment cigarettes to the companies but increased supplementary duty by one percent for both categories. He also suggested for raising the price of 'bidi' to discourage rural poor from smoking.

"The price of 25 sticks of non-filter and 20 sticks of filter bidi will stand at Tk 10.61 and Tk 12.03 respectively," he added. 

Smokeless tobacco products are also equally injurious to health like bidi and cigarette, the finance minister observed and said he would prefer to enhance duties on 'Jarda' and 'Gul'- two widely used smokeless tobacco- to 100 percent from 60 percent.

Muhith expressed his optimism about the continuous progress in the health sector and said a new social health security programme, now on pilot basis, would be extended nationwide once it is found successful. Under this scheme, he said, poor people will receive better health services through health cards.

Source: BSS.