Budget 2018 | Jaitley announces world's largest healthcare programme that will benefit 50 crore people: 5 points to know
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today announced world’s largest healthcare programme in his Budget speech (LIVE UPDATE) on Thursday.
Here are 5 key points of the flagship programme:
1: The National Health Protection Scheme has been announced by the Union Finance Minister in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The scheme will cover 10 crore families, Jaitley said.
2: According to Jaitley, each family will be provided up to Rs 5 lakh as insurance cover.
3: Rs 1,200 crore have been allocated for health wellness centres.
4: These 1.5 lakh centres will provide free essential drugs and diagnostic services.
5: The scheme would benefit around 50 crore people.
Here are key highlights of the Union Budget so far:
GROWTH
* Estimates 7.2 to 7.5 percent GDP growth in second half of current fiscal year
* Finance minister says "firmly on path to achieve 8 percent plus growth soon"
INFRASTRUCTURE
* To spend 14.34 trillion Indian rupees ($225.50 billion) on rural infrastructure
AGRICULTURE
* Finance minister says will focus on strengthening rural, agriculture economy
* Sets 10 trillion rupees to 11 trillion rupees credit for "agricultural activities"
* Minimum support price of all crops to be increased to at least 1.5 times of production cost
* Export of agriculture commodities to be liberalised
HEALTH/POLLUTION
* To provide 500,000 rupees per family annually for medical reimbursement under National Health Protection Scheme. Finance minister says the plan will protect 100 million poor families and will be world's largest health protection scheme.
* To implement special schemes for governments around Delhi to address air pollution
* Removal of crop residue to be subsidized in order to tackle the problem of pollution due to burning of crop residue
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