Punjab pharma claims central drug control body favouring MNCs; to take issue to Modi
The turnover condition is way to allow backdoor entry to the MNCs by amending the Rules of the Drugs Act at the bureaucratic level. JAGDEEP SINGH, general secy, Punjab Pharma Industries Assn
MOHALI:Claiming that the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) had kept the turnover eligibility condition for firms wanting to bid for government supply to an ‘unrealistic’ ₹20-50 crore a year to kill small and medium pharma industry, 5,000 SMEs in the state have decided to seek Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention.
CDSCO exercises regulatory control over the import of drugs, approval of new drugs and clinical trials and approval of certain licences for manufacture of medicines. It also coordinates activities of State Drug Control Organisations.
Punjab Pharmaceutical Industries Association secretary general, Jagdeep Singh, claimed, “The CDSCO is working at the behest of Multinational Pharma Companies (MNCs). We want to apprise Prime Minister Narendra Modi of this attempt to give back-door entry to MNCs.”
The second major objection of the industry is that the excise policy, introduced in 2005, rendered units outside the Excise Free Zones (EFZ) unviable. This, the association claims meant only those firms that are owned by political giants have flourished.
Jagdeep added, “Previously, two attempts have been made to centralise licensing in 2007 and 2013 to divest the state governments of their power to licence the industry, even as the subject is on the Concurrent List of the Constitution. Both times, the standing committee shot down the bills. This foiled the MNCs’ bid to use a single channel, namely the CDSCO to get rid of competition from small pharma.”
“The turnover condition is nothing, but a way to allow backdoor entry to the MNCs by amending the Rules of the Drugs Act at the bureaucratic level,” he goes on to add.
To buttress their claim against the CDSCO, the association points out that six MNCs have cornered 30% market in the Rs 1 lakh crore Indian market over the past 14 years.
Another pharma manufacturer, Ashwani Soni, said, “Life imprisonment has been mandated for producing spurious drugs in 2008. So, our industry is well regulated.
This turnover condition is unwarranted.” He claimed that if the SMEs were not allowed to function, affording even a paracetamol would be a challenge for the majority of the country’s population.
Food and Drug administration joint commissioner, Pardeep Kumar Mattu, who is the State Drugs Controller, said, “The state is merely an implementation agency. The CDSCO is the agency that makes rules and we are just implementing the same.”
‘DOING NOTHING TO WEAKEN SMALL PHARMA’
K Bangarurajan, joint drugs controller, CDSCO, when contacted, told HT over phone, “The subject of licensing the industry continues to be on the concurrent list. We are not taking decision which would weaken the local pharma industry. We not centralising the licensing or stripping the state government of its powers to issue licences.”