We are living through a period of unusual uncertainty. Trade relationships are changing. Climate events are disrupting supply chains. Energy markets fluctuate. To secure a larger role in global value chains, economies must build the capacity to endure changes. 

While we cannot control external shocks, we can control how resilient our own systems are. High attrition, untreated health challenges, and weak supervisory practices create avoidable instability inside firms. Strengthening retention, improving working conditions, and reducing avoidable churn will not remove global volatility, but they will enhance the system’s capacity to absorb it.

In this context, the Annual Budget 2026–27 makes an important case for human capital. The Budget’s second core duty is “to fulfil aspirations of people and build their capacity, making them strong partners in India’s path to prosperity.” It treats health, education, skills, and workforce participation as investments that enable productive participation.

Let’s unpack what the Budget says about human capital as part of our economic infrastructure. In this three-part series, we’ll explore it through three lenses: health, livelihood, and gender.

Health as Productive Infrastructure

One of the most consequential signals in Budget 2026–27 is the framing of health as capacity. The logic is sequential: health enables learning; learning enables skill acquisition; skills enable productive work; and productive work sustains growth. When baseline health is fragile, every downstream investment underperforms. Skill development cannot succeed if workers are unwell. Technology adoption falters if physical or cognitive capacity is constrained.

The economic costs of weak health systems are measurable. Globally, illness-related absenteeism costs employers an estimated $575 billion annually, with 1.5 billion workdays lost each year due to health-related absence (Integrated Benefits Institute, 2020). Depression and anxiety alone account for billions more in lost productivity. For low-wage workers without reliable safety nets, untreated health conditions do not simply affect wellbeing, they directly erode earning potential and economic stability. These costs make clear that health is a core economic variable, one that stakeholders in the ecosystem must account for explicitly.

What does the budget account for?

Against this backdrop, the Budget for 2026–27 applies a productivity focus through targeted measures for informal and blue-collar workers.

• Extending PM-JAY coverage to gig and platform workers protects income continuity in the expanding service economy. 
• Strengthening Ayushman Arogya Mandirs to deliver comprehensive primary care and accelerating tuberculosis reduction directly target diseases that erode daily wage capacity.
• The National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) scheme shifts sanitation work toward mechanized, safer systems, linking dignity and productivity.
• Industrial housing initiatives recognize that rest, hygiene, and living conditions are economic inputs, not peripheral concerns.
• Acknowledging stress as a productivity drag, the Budget establishes NIMHANS-2 and upgrades mental health institutes, treating mental resilience as essential for a modern workforce.

These reforms reflect a growing recognition that poor health constrains workers and, by extension, the broader economy. The evidence for this is visible in implementation, including in projects we have supported across diverse workplace contexts.

What We’ve Seen in Practice

Evidence from our projects demonstrates how health improvements translate into productivity gains.

• Near-Vision Correction for Workers: Near-vision challenges, particularly presbyopia, affect many garment workers aged 35 and above, impacting their ability to work comfortably and perform their tasks with precision. Correcting near-vision impairment among garment workers increased productivity by 5.7%, generating a 337% return on investment.
• Peer-Led Mental Health Programme for Migrant Women Workers: Women who migrate from villages to cities for jobs often feel lonely and lack trusted support systems. During this transition, they experience heightened anxiety and depression. Our Peer-led mental health programme for migrant women workers reduced depression and anxiety by 5% and 5.3%, respectively, and increased overall productivity by 6.4%. 
• Workplace Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme: Women often face gaps in sexual and reproductive health knowledge, compounded by stigma and limited access to reliable care. Menstrual health, far from being a narrow hygiene issue, is central to dignity and bodily autonomy, a principle the Supreme Court has recently affirmed by recognising menstrual health as part of the constitutional right to dignity.  Our structured, workplace-delivered SRH programme improved menstruation knowledge by 114%, strengthened attitudes toward modern contraceptives by 60.4%, and improved general health behaviours by 19%, showing that factory-based interventions can strengthen women’s health and autonomy at scale.
• Parametric Heat Insurance for Climate Protection: Climate volatility increases health risks, with 80 million workers globally expected to face extreme heat stress by 2030. Conventional insurance fails to cover climate-driven losses, leaving workers, especially gig workers, vulnerable to financial instability when climate shocks hit. They must choose between working in dangerous heat or losing pay. We are exploring new models like parametric heat insurance, which automatically pays out upon reaching temperature thresholds, linking health protection and income stability. 

Across each of these interventions, the pattern is consistent: targeted health support improves wellbeing and translates into measurable gains, for workers and for the businesses that employ them.

Health Is a Part of Good Jobs

Health is fundamental to dignity. When workers are healthy, they are more secure and confident, allowing them to fully participate in their work and lives, reach their economic potential, and lead better lives.

If resilience is the goal in an uncertain global environment, then strengthening worker health is a component of the core economic infrastructure. We believe that when workers have access to affordable, timely health interventions, the benefits ripple across their lives, families and into the workplace. Ultimately, our commitment is to make health a fundamental part of how we operate because we truly believe that the wellbeing of our workers is the basis for good jobs which also enables strong business performance.

Next up, we’ll dive into the specifics of how the budget is designed to support women in the workforce.