New Delhi, Feb. 2 -- The Union budget presented on Saturday saw a 9.8% increase in the allocation for the healthcare sector to Rs.99,858.56 crore from Rs.90,958.68 crore in the previous financial year but overall health allocation remained below 2% of the budget.

The share of health in the FY26 budget increased marginally to 1.97% from 1.9% in FY25 and 1.87% in FY24. The year-on-year growth for FY25 was 8.2%.

Focusing on expanding medical care and infrastructure the budget extended the Ayushman Bharat scheme to gig workers, increased the number of seats in medical education, lent support to medical tourism, announced the establishment of 200 cancer daycare centres and exempted duties on some essential medicines for cancer and rare disea...