Kamal Haasan calls for epidemic preparedness budget in India

CHENNAI: Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan on Monday said it was a 'pity' that India sees defence as more 'newsworthy' than healthcare, while reimagining India for a “post-Covid world”. He outlined a proposal that cut across sectors and emphasised the need for an 'epidemic preparedness budget' for the health sector.

He said India's defence allocation for 2020-21 was $65.86 billion, which is 2% of our total GDP while that of healthcare has been hovering just over the 1%-mark for about a decade.

"While good defence is a deterrent, microbes don't make that judgement. They wage a war with anyone irrespective of their military budgets. That's why India needs to earmark an epidemic preparedness budget with immediate effect," Haasan stated in his statement that he put out on his Twitter handle.


The Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) president said that poor healthcare is an everyday war leading to 1.6 million deaths annually. “Yet, our defence budget overshadows the healthcare budget.” Haasan said India needs to make agriculture great again. To do so, he said we require a ‘Green Plus’ revolution that converts part of our agricultural land for an allied enterprise like processing and logistics. “Secondly, we need to accelerate productivity maximisation on a war footing. Boosting agro-based MSMEs will help retain youth in the sector and build a sustainable and prosperous future for farming. This will also solve the problem of seasonal lack of work for farmers,” Haasan said.