New Delhi: India’s fight against HIV-AIDS got a major push this Budget with finance minister Arun Jaitley announcing more than 17 per cent increase in the Budget for National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco) this time. The programme was jeopardised earlier after Narendra Modi government had made a major cut in the social spending.
In the Health Budget this time which saw an increase of over 27 per cent, a 17.65 per cent increase was announced for NACO. With this, the Budget for NACO sees an increase of 17.65 per cent from Rs 1,700 crore in 2016-2017 to Rs 2,000 crore in 2017-2018. Earlier in 2015-16 the central AIDS budget was slashed by 22 per cent which saw health workers being laid off and programmes to prevent the spread of the deadly disease curtailed.
The push to HIV programme by pumping substantial money, according to experts, will help strengthening of government management capacity to scale up HIV programmes in the country. With about 2.1 million people infected with HIV in 2013, India has the most cases in the Asia-Pacific, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
