Budget provides customs duty exemptions for three cancer treatment drugs

Union government allocates funds for healthcare research, customs duty exemptions on cancer drugs, and increased health sector budget.

The Union government has continued its emphasis on tackling non-communicable diseases, and allocating funds for research in the healthcare sector, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23 announcing customs duty exemptions on three cancer treatment drugs — Trastuzumab Deruxtecan, Osimertinib, and Durvalumab.

“To provide relief to cancer patients, I propose to fully exempt three more medicines from customs duties. I also propose changes in the BCD (basic customs duty) on X-ray tubes and flat panel detectors for use in medical X-ray machines under the phased manufacturing programme,” the Finance Minister said.

The total outlay for the health sector was ₹89,287 crore, amounting to 1.85% of the budget expenditure, marginally up from 1.76%, and ₹79,221 crore in revised estimate for budget 2023-24. This remains below the 2% mark for health outlays from FY18 to FY22.

The Health Ministry has been allocated ₹90,958.63 crore in the 2024-2025 budget, an increase from ₹80,517.62 crore in the 2023-24 revised estimates. The budget allocation for the AYUSH Ministry has been increased from ₹3,000 crore to ₹3,712.49 crore.

Out of the ₹90,958.63 crore, ₹87,656.90 crore has been allocated to the Department of Health and Family Welfare, and ₹3,301.73 crore to the Department of Health Research. The budget allocation for schemes under the Department of Health and Family Welfare has been increased from ₹77,624.79 crore to ₹87,656.90 crore. The government has also allocated ₹2,143 crore as production linked incentives (PLIs) for the pharmaceutical industry.

The government is also set to operationalise the Anusandhan National Research Fund for basic research and prototype development, and bring in provisions for enhanced private sector-driven research and innovation at a commercial scale, with a financing pool of ₹1 lakh crore in line with the announcement in the interim budget.

Meanwhile, reacting to the measures announced in the budget, members from the healthcare sector maintained that some long-standing healthcare sector demands remained unaddressed in the current budget. “These include increasing the GDP spend on healthcare to 2.5%, prioritising healthcare as a national issue, promoting medical value travel in India, addressing indirect taxation, and rationalising GST with a uniform rate and full input tax credit eligibility,’’ Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, MD and CEO, Fortis Healthcare Limited, said.