"We were expecting the government to move forward on promised reforms and anticipated conducive measures to boost domestic manufacturing of medical devices. It is frustrating that against our expectations, the government has not included any measures to help end the 80-85 per cent import dependence forced upon India and an ever-increasing import bill of over Rs 46000 crore and promoting growth Indian Medical Device industry other than repeating last year’s assurance to end custom exemptions of products that can be made in India. Sadly the union budget 2022 speech has no strategic stated measures to boost domestic manufacturing. These are the same domestic manufacturers, when imports got disrupted during the COVID-19 crisis, the government relied heavily on them to meet the rising demand of essential covid items for the country pushing the Indian medical devices sector to become self-reliant."
