Covid-19 impact: Health expenditure in April trebles to Rs 13,000 crore

If this rate of rise continues, allocation will be exhausted in just five months

Expenditure by the health and family welfare ministry due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak surged to almost Rs 13,000 crore in April this year. This is three times the Rs 4,327 crore incurred in the same month of last year.
 

Experts say a large part of the expenditure in April was spent on heads such as creating infrastructure for testing capacity and procuring testing kits, among other things.
 

In fact, the ministry incurred 19 per cent of its allocated expenditure for the entire 2020-21 in April compared to 7 per cent a year ago and three per cent in 2018-19,