Government to exempt certain cancer medicines sales tax

In his recent budget speech, Union Cabinet Minister of Finance & Planning Sudhir Mungantiwar has made it vocal that certain medicines required for the treatment of cancer will be exempted from sales tax and said that the list of medicines would be notified separately.

Significantly, it is estimated to cost the exchequer Rs 15 crore. Similarly, the tax on the guide wire used to treat heart patients has been reduced from 12.5 per cent to 5 per cent, as reported by leading daily TNN.

The report also said that the government has provided Rs 300 crore for the Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayi Arogya Yojana. Also, as part of its streamlining exercise, the government has merged the National Rural Health Mission, National Urban Health Mission and 11 other disease-control programmes into the National Health Mission and provided an outlay of Rs 1,996 crore.

Mungantiwar further said, "To ensure quick transport to hospitals and reduce infant-mortality rate, the government will provide 70 ambulances for newborn infants."

"To encourage physical exercise, the government will establish public gyms across the state," he added.

The finance minister reiterated the government's commitment to build a super-specialty hospital building as part of the Sir JJ hospital campus. However, no outlay has been provided to achieve the same.

A national institute of pharmacy education and research is to be set up at Nagpur and a comprehensive master plan for developing the city's government medical college has been prepared, he noted.

Not just this, the government also plans to improve facilities to upgrade postgraduate medical programmes in government medical colleges at Pune, Aurangabad, Akola, Ambejogai, Solapur, Miraj, Sangli, Dhule, Yavatmal, Latur and Nagpur, and has provided Rs 20 crore for the same, as reported by TNN.