CHENNAI: The Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) said the Union Budget 2022-23 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam in Parliament on Tuesday gave the Indian medical devices industry the cold shoulder.

"We expected the government to move through on promised changes and anticipated favourable steps to stimulate domestic medical device production," said Rajiv Nath, coordinator of the AiMeD Forum.

It is disappointing that, contrary to our expectations, the government has not included any measures to assist India in reducing its 80-85 percent import dependency and its ever-increasing import bill of over Rs 46,000 crore, he added.

According to Nath, the Budget does little to help the Indian medical device industry flourish, except from reiterating last year's promise to terminate custom exemptions for products that can be created in India.

"The only good news was the statement on public procurement, which allowed for 75 percent fast payments and introduced a weighted pricing preference based on quality, which is extremely important in healthcare-related medical products," he said.