Change in States' Capital Expenditure on Health during the Pandemic

The gaps in health infrastructure in states have often been discussed in the context of the pandemic. The need for expansion in budgets for health exist not only for spending on capital heads of expenditure such as building of hospitals, buying of ambulances etc. but also on addressing the acute human resource shortages through recruitments and spending more on their salaries. While higher capital expenditure, on its own, does not indicate better quality of spending on health services, it remains an important indicator to study in the context of the present health crisis. The metric considered below provides a comparison across states about how the allocation in the capital heads of the budget for health have changed in 2021-22BE as compared to 2020-21BE. While states like Uttar Pradesh (115.8%) and Madhya Pradesh (85.9%) have recorded the highest increases in allocations under the capital account for the health sector, Kerala (-1.6%) and Gujarat (-5.3%) have witnessed decrease in the capital budget for health.

Hover over the State, or tap on it, to see value of the indicator