Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a post-budget webinar on boosting job creation.
| Photo Credit: PMO website via PTI
Capacity-building and talent-nurturing will prove to be the foundation stones of the country’s progress said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday (March 5, 2025), while addressing the post-budget webinar on employment via video conferencing.
The theme of the webinar was “Investing in People, Economy, and Innovation,” which was attended by 29 Ministries of the Government of India, 100 panellists and more than 25,000 participants to discuss 43 articles of the recent Union Budget 2025-26. The theme of the webinar, ‘Investing in People’, defines the roadmap of Viksit Bharat and the impact of this theme can be seen at a large level on the budget.”
Stating that the vision of investment in people is based on three pillars — education, skill and healthcare” he said that in the budget, 10,000 additional medical seats have been announced, and the government is working with the target of adding 75,000 seats in medical education in the next 5 years.
Highlighting the developments in the healthcare landscape, the Prime Minister stated that “tele-medicine facility is being expanded to all the Primary Health Centres. Through Day Care Cancer Centres and digital healthcare infrastructure, we want to take quality healthcare to the last mile that will ensure significant transformation in people’s lives.”
Speaking about the importance and potential of the tourism sector, the Prime Minister stated that initiatives like “Heal in India” are attracting medical tourists from around the world” and “efforts are being made in the direction of making India a global-level tourism and wellness hub.” He urged all the stakeholders in the healthcare sector “to grab this opportunity and invest to promote health tourism” and emphasized on “utilizing the potential of Yoga and wellness tourism.”
Also read: Medical industry welcomes promotion of Heal in India initiative to boost tourism in Hyderabad
The Prime Minister also called for a detailed discussion and an extended roadmap for increasing the scope of medical tourism and urged all the stakeholders to work in the direction of making the budget announcements a reality so that their benefits can be taken to the people.
Addressing the gathering, Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda stated that “the biggest investment is the investment in people”. He underlined that the government is working with a “holistic approach” that focuses not only at the curative aspect but also on the preventive, palliative, and rehabilitative approach. He added that “we are also trying to include the AYUSH and other medical systems to ensure the availability and access to healthcare for the people.”
The Minister added that since cancer treatment is a lengthy process with a long cycle of chemotherapy, the government is focusing on engaging with Day Care Cancer Centres rather than big hospitals to ensure engagement of patients, post-chemotherapy sessions. The government will establish Day Care Cancer Centres (DCCCs) in all district hospitals over the next three years, with 200 this year itself.
Underlining the importance of strengthening the medical health system, the Union Health minister reiterated the budget announcements of additional medical seats. He also highlighted the government’s efforts to ensure the availability and accessibility of quality healthcare to the people through more than 1.75 lakh Ayushman Aarogya Mandirs and facility of voluntary screenings for individuals aged 30 years and above at Ayushman Arogya Mandirs for oral, breast and cervical cancers along with the screening for hypertension and diabetes.
The Minister also advocated for including latest developments in technology, Artificial Intelligence, tele-medicine, digital healthcare in the revised curriculum of medical education. In his concluding remarks, he urged “for creating a curriculum that is more vibrant, meaningful and fit to current challenges” and “optimum utilization of existing infrastructure and medical faculty. He also emphasised the need to add soft skills to increase the empathy, ethics and communication skills of the medical students.”
Published – March 05, 2025 11:39 pm IST
