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Experts slam BMC allocation for health — 10% of overall budget

In 2015-16, Rs3,359.78 crore have been allocated for the health department, a marginal increase of 0.8% from last year. However, the increase itself is a hogwash, say experts.

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The city's health budget has turned out to be a mere cut-copy-paste exercise. Not only are there no plans to make Mumbai's civic hospital infrastructure robust, but also the promises made in previous year's budget have not been fulfilled.

In 2015-16, Rs3,359.78 crore have been allocated for the health department, a marginal increase of 0.8% from last year. However, the increase itself is a hogwash, say experts.

BMC's budget planning is spread over three years, so the actual utilisation of money that occurred in 2013-14 was revealed in the budget announcements of 2015-16 on Wednesday. While close to Rs2,508 crore was allotted for health in 2013-14, only Rs1,894.47 crore were utilised. "Nearly Rs614 crore (up to 25%) lie unutilised," said Ravi Duggal, researcher, International Budget Partnership.

In 2014-15, many new promises were made — constructing more hospitals, acquiring advanced machinery, such as MRI machines, and increasing the bed strength. The promise of constructing hospitals, including one 600-bed facility in Bhandup, or reconstruction of Bhagwati Hospital in Borivli was made over a year ago, but neither has become a reality yet.

Corporators said the promises made in last year's budget have been repeated. "For the past three years, the talk of refurbishing maternity homes in Mumbai is on. The same pointers have been cut, copied and pasted from last year's budget copy this year. BMC has failed to implement its promises and proposals related to augmentation of health infrastructure," said corporator from Kurla Rais Shaikh.

Shaikh added that the civic body has got its priorities wrong. For a burgeoning population of over 35,000 people suffering from TB, to allot a mere Rs1 crore for constructing an 11-bed Intensive Respiratory Care Unit is nothing but a joke, he said, slamming the Rs45 crore allottment for building a cultural centre.

Experts said BMC's health infrastructure is rotting in stagnation. "The health budget is 10% of the overall BMC budget of Rs33, 540 crore, but if you look at how BMC's money is spent a huge gap in actual spending is revealed," said Duggal.

BMC's additional health commissioner Sanjay Deshmukh admitted that there were procedural delays in constructing hospitals and equipping them with infrastructure. RN Cooper Hospital in Vile Parle, Trauma Care Centre in Jogeshwari and Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivli are merely white elephants in the room with massive structures and no diagnostic facilities for a year now.

"The cost of building these hospitals escalated due to procedural delays over the last two years. Also, a lot of pending bills have to be cleared and, therefore, we have had delays," said Deshmukh.

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