“Although, the pandemic has affected almost all social services, yet the health sector was the worst hit. Expenditure on health sector increased from Rs 2.73 lakh crore in 2019-20
(pre-COVID-19) to Rs 4.72 lakh crore in 2021-22 (BE), an increase of nearly 73 percent. For the education sector, the increase during same period was 20 per cent,” said the annual survey report released ahead of the Union Budget.
The report presented in the parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman noted that the government’s spending on social services increased significantly during the pandemic.
As per the survey, India has made significant progress in improving its health outcomes over the last two decades by eliminating polio, guinea worm disease, yaws and maternal and neonatal tetanus.
As per the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5, social indicators such as total fertility
rate, sex ratio and health outcome indicators viz., infant mortality rate, under-five mortality rate, institutional birth rates have improved over year 2015-16.
The latest NFHS-5 shows that Total Fertility Rate (TFR), an average number of children per women, has further come down to 2 in 2019-21 from 2.2 in 2015-16.
Sex ratio, number of females per 1000 males, in the total population has risen from 991 females in 2015-16 (NFHS-4) to 1020 in 2019-21 (NFHS-5).