Union Budget for Mental Health 2023-24: An Analysis

The Union Government proposed a fiscal spending of 45,03,097 crore for the financial year 2023-24. Of this, about two per cent – amounting to Rs. 89,155 crores – was allocated for health and related programmes.

The total mental health budget for the year was Rs. 1,199 crores, the report states.

The Department of Health Research’s portion of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s total budget estimates for the financial year 2023-24 was Rs. 2,980 crores.

Allocations for mental health under the two centrally-funded mental health institutions and the National Tele-Mental Health Programme (T-MANAS) increased by 16 per cent from Rs. 791 crores in FY 2022-23 to Rs. 919 crores in 2023-24. This was under the MoHFW’s budget.

The budget estimate for National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Science (NIMHANS), for the financial year is Rs. 721 crores, an increase of 29 per cent over the budget estimate allocated to it during 2022-23. This was also six per cent over the revised estimate for the financial year 2022-23 (Rs. 678 crores).

The report states that in the previous health expenditure budgets, the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) was a “separate line-item under Tertiary Activities”. However, this year it was subsumed under the consolidated “Tertiary Care Programme”. This restructuring, the report states, makes it difficult to pin down the exact amount allocated towards the tertiary care components of the NMHP.

There has been a pattern of underutilisation of funding under the Rights of Persons With Disabilities Act, 2016, since the financial year 2017-18, the report states. The report adds, 16 per cent of the funds allocated for the scheme were still unused; in the financial year 2021-22, this number was as high as 50 per cent. 

The National Suicide Prevention Strategy (NSPS), which was announced by Ministry of Health and Family last year, along with National Tele Mental Health Programme (T-MANAS), outlines the recommended strategy by the government of reducing suicide mortality by 10 per cent in 2030.

Focus and Factoids by Ashish Singh.

PARI Library’s health archive project is part of an initiative supported by the Azim Premji University to develop a free-access repository of health-related reports relevant to rural India