Odisha allocates Rs 23,635 crore for public healthcare, plans to establish new medical colleges

BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to achieve the goal of ‘Sustha Odisha: Health for All’, the Odisha government has proposed to spend Rs 23,635 crore for public healthcare in 2025-26, up by 11.5 per cent over last fiscal’s budget estimate of Rs 21,200 crore.

The highest allocation of Rs 4,479 crore has been made under Gopabandhu Jana Arogya Yojana, which is being run alongside Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana enabling all eligible beneficiaries to avail accessible, affordable and quality health care services at 29,000 empaneled government and private hospitals across the country.

Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said a corpus fund of Rs 200 crore has been created for establishment of medical colleges and other health institutions and the process has begun for recruitment of more than 5,000 doctors to ensure availability of doctors in each state-owned medical facility including remote locations.

“There are proposals from different districts, including Bhadrak, for medical colleges. A high-level committee has been constituted to look into these proposals and submit a report within one month. Accordingly, a decision will be taken to set up medical and dental colleges as per need,” he said.

The state government has made a budgetary provision of Rs 3,881 crore for health infrastructure projects under Mukhya Mantri Swasthya Seva Mission, Rs 2,091 crore for state’s contribution under National Health Mission and Rs 940 crore for free drug scheme Niramaya.

Similarly, Rs 997 crore has been provisioned under Nirmal scheme for maintaining hygiene in hospital campuses, Rs 229 crore under Nidan scheme for providing free diagnostic services, Rs 222 crore for free emergency ambulance service, Rs 211 crore for comprehensive cancer care service for early detection of cancer and Rs 364 crore for the bio medical waste management.

Among other major allocations in the health sector included, Rs 100 crore for Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, Rs 100 crore for construction of drug warehouses in district headquarters hospital and medical colleges and Rs 420 crore for Arna Hospital scheme under which new medical and dental colleges will be established in a phased manner.

The state government has decided to cover all gram panchayats with Ayushman Arogya Mandirs and for this, Rs 500 crore has been proposed in the budget. A new initiative - Swasthya Sahaya scheme with an allocation of Rs 270 crore has been planned for mitigating communicable and non-communicable diseases, managing logistics, training and research, strengthening of OPD and public health laboratory and stem cell laboratory and other support services.