In February this year, a performance audit of Uttar Pradesh’s AYUSH department by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) highlighted that Rs 2,717.79 crore was provisioned for homoeopathy services alone between 2018 and 2023.
Nearly a quarter of that amount was surrendered back to the treasury, year after year, always on the last working day of the financial calendar – a pattern that shows up when nobody really had a plan for the money in the first place. Across these five financial years, that added up to Rs 658.06 crore. What was spent didn’t always reach anyone either. The auditors also checked homoeopathic dispensaries across the state and found 81 percent of them without basic dressing or first-aid material on hand.
