Abstract

Despite significant improvements over the last few decades, India faces a massive crisis in terms of its accessbility and affordability of healthcare for the general population. Alternative health financing solutions for the poor range between public health centres and unfit health insurance schemes. One attempt to increase the money spent in public healthcare lay in the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM), with many innovations introduced under the NRHM to hep improve healthcare delivery. One such example are the flexible funding initiatives in Karnataka, though this funding is not totally effectively utilised. This reports looks at a study of the state of healthcare funding and utilisation in Bangalore Urban and Udupi in Karnataka, to identify suitability of differential financing, a way to improve effective distribution of funds for public healthcare.

Results from the study indicate that the utilisation of the funds examined in this study (untied funds, annual maintenance grants and ARS corpus funds) have been increasing in the sample health facilities over the last 3 years, while the VHSC and sub-centre level have not been employed to the same extent. The study also notes large variation in per-capita receipt of funds, largely due to variation in population served by PHCs. These findings, as well as others in the report, inform the recommendations suggested in the report, such as strengthening of health infrastructure, retraining of staff and implementation of differential financing with indicators, like per-capita allocation and other performance based indicators in time.

Jain, N., NS, P., & Jain, B. (2012). Differential financing for untied funds, ARS corpus and AMG funds in public health facilities of Karnataka. Karnataka, India: Center for Budget & Policy Studies. Karnataka State Health System Resource Centre.