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The Min­istry of Health has re­ceived its high­est bud­get al­lo­ca­tion in over a decade—$8.214 bil­lion, the sec­ond-largest al­lo­ca­tion af­ter Ed­u­ca­tion in this year’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment Bud­get.

Dur­ing his maid­en Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said, “Good health is the foun­da­tion of pros­per­i­ty.”

He out­lined sev­er­al ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing amend­ments to the Chil­dren’s Life Fund, ex­tend­ed health cen­tre hours in 12 com­mu­ni­ties, mod­erni­sa­tion of the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP) and a Na­tion­al Health Man­age­ment In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem with se­cure health ID.