Dr. Ajay Sharma, Chief Medical Director of Eye-Q Super speciality Eye Hospitals
“People in India are becoming increasingly aware of the enormity of vision loss. This is primarily due to the major initiatives launched by eye-care hospitals to examine and resolve discrepancies. As the growing population ages in India, the burden of eyesight disorders will only shoot up. Many of the most prevalent causes of blindness or moderate-to-severe loss of vision, including cataracts, under-corrected refractive error, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy, are preventable if frameworks for early detection and intervention are freely accessible. Worse, the burden of eye diseases and visual impairments is not uniformly distributed: it is often far higher in remote regions, among low-income people, women, senior citizens, individuals with disabilities, minorities, and indigenous populations.”
Mr. Rajat Goel Co-founder and CEO, Eye-Q Super speciality Eye Hospitals
“Therefore, to commit to a greater push to make eye care services an essential component of universal health coverage and tackle the skyrocketing impact of vision loss on sustainable development, the union Budget 2023 must come up with new mechanisms and initiatives for large-scale eye screening and testing. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, India is confronted with a mountain of backlog due to a steep decline in eye surgery, particularly in rural areas. So we also anticipate initiatives and government support to assist eye-care chains in clearing the backlog. Moreover, lowering GST and other import taxes should be prioritised to make health insurance and eye-care equipment more affordable.
Dr. Ganesh Nikam, Managing Director and CEO of Biojobz
“Since it is a budget wish list, I would like to limit my wishes to two very important tax demands. Considering the holding period, ESOPs should be considered long-term capital gains (LTCG) for tax purposes and should only be taxed at the time of sale rather than at the time of exercise. Two, to incentivize and increase retail investments into early-stage startups, a) Tax credit upto to Rs 5 Lakhs from personal taxable income for any investment loss in recognized startups, b) Deferring of capital gains in case it is reinvested in startups, or any SEBI recognized funds.”
Mr. Yuichi Nagano, Managing Director, Sakra World Hospital, Bengaluru
As a country, India has shown remarkable growth and progress while managing a pandemic and becoming a preferred destination for medical treatments over the last few years. However, we are still reeling with certain infrastructural shortcomings that must be addressed in the upcoming union budget. As we know, that by 2025, the government is expected to increase the public investment from 1.29% of GDP to at least 2.5-3%. While we are taking steps towards becoming a digitized nation, we must also look into strengthening the medical fraternity holistically in terms of healthcare education, training and skill development and thereby increasing the number of doctors available geographically for every nook and corner of the country, invest towards building more care and awareness programs for intensive care and preventive healthcare which includes mental health and overall wellness.
Only after we start investing in infrastructure and innovation can we look at strong private and public partnerships to create a technologically-advanced robust healthcare ecosystem that offers affordable, newer, out-of-the-box, innovative healthcare solutions to further reduce the burden, especially while catering to the underprivileged.
