In order to please Mamata Banerjee, Derek O’Brien compares apples with oranges, misleads people

Mamata’s trusted confidante and the blue-eyed boy of the liberal brigade- Derek O’Brien, who was missing from public action in last few months, is active on Twitter once again, with even more controversial and absurd posts. 

In a tweet on comparison on health expenditure of central and state government, Derek O’Brien compared India’s ‘percentage of GDP expenditure on health’ to West Bengal’s ‘percentage of budget expenditure on health’. 

When one compares data, the metric should be the same; otherwise, there is no point of comparison. But, as if to mislead the people, Derek O’Brien shared an infographic which compared ‘GDP’ with ‘budgeted expenditure’. 

Central government spends only 1.28 per cent of GDP on health compared to 4.01 per cent of budgeted expenditure by the state of West Bengal, he claimed in a Tweet. 

Normally, the state or central government’s budgeted expenditure is between 10 to 20 per cent of GDP. For example, India’s budgeted expenditure is 24, 42,213 crore rupees against GDP of 190 lakh crore rupees. Therefore, the budgeted expenditure is around 12-13 per cent of GDP. Similarly, West Bengal’s budgeted expenditure is 2, 14,959 crore rupees against GDP 10, 48,678 crore rupees. So, West Bengal’s budgeted expenditure is around 20 per cent of the state’s GDP. 

He ‘corrected’ his mistake a day after and wrote, “Thank you for suggesting I should compare like-with-like. So here it is. Spend on #healthcare The India Story versus The Bengal.” He shared the aforementioned tweet two times on the timeline. 

So, what is the real story behind the health expenditure of the central government and state government? 

In FY 2018-19, central government spent 54,600 crore rupees on Health and Family Welfare. This is around 2.31 per cent of Modi government’s budgeted expenditure (24, 42,213 crore rupees) and less than one per cent of India’s GDP (190 lakh crore rupees). 

The health expenditure of West Bengal is 8,770 crore rupees. This is around 4 per cent of the state’s budgeted expenditure (2, 14,959 crore rupees) and 0.85 per cent of state’s GDP (10, 48,678 crore rupees). 

Moreover, currently, health is in the state list of the constitution and even the central sector schemes on health are implemented in collaboration with the state government. In fact, as per story by Economic Times, published in September, this year, “A high-level group (HLG) on health sector constituted by the Fifteenth Finance Commission has recommended that ‘Right to Health’ be declared a fundamental right on the 75th Independence Day in 2022 and the Constitution be amended to shift the subject of health from the state list to the concurrent list.” 

Therefore, to provide healthcare facilities to people in the state’s responsibility. Even the central government implements its flagship healthcare schemes (example-Ayushman Bharat) in coordination with the state government. Unless a state government decides to collaborate with the centre, any central government scheme could not be implemented in the state given the fact health is the prerogative of the state, as per the constitution of India. That’s why many states like Delhi, Telangana, and Odisha refused to implement the central government’s Ayushman Bharat scheme. 

Since Modi government came to power, the centre’s allotment for health and family welfare has increased consistently. Last year, the government increased the expenditure in the sector by 15.2 per cent to 64,559 crore rupees. Ayushman Bharat is the world’s largest healthcare scheme with 10 crore families and 50 crore people under the flagship health insurance plan.  

On the other hand, expenditure of West Bengal is less than the average of combined expenditure of 27 other states. The combined expenditure of the state’s on health is 5.2 per cent while budgeted only 5.1 per cent on the same. 

Derek O’Brien’s sycophancy of Mamata Banerjee and TMC crosses all the levels of dignity and self-respect. He has worked as an adman earlier, so perhaps this level of sycophancy is due to his previous job where one convinces people for purchasing a product even if it is not worthwhile by praising the product markedly. The level of sycophancy Derek displayed by him is something that even Rahul Gandhi’s sycophants can only aspire to reach. He is even ready to mislead the people to please Mamata Banerjee.