The announcement of the new Pharmaceutical Policy in February this year did raise some great expectations amongst the pharmaceutical industry in the country. The policy draft had clearly laid down a framework for the growth of this industry in post 2005 era. A significant highlight of the policy is its thrust on reducing the span of price control. This is in line with the government's overall policy of liberalisation of industrial sector and in accordance with the wishes of the drug industry. As per the parameters in the new policy, only formulations of around 30 drugs would remain under the new price control list as against 74 under the DPCO, 1995. And the new DPCO based on the Drug Policy, 2002 should have been notified in a few weeks from the announcement of the drug policy. But that did not happen so far. Firstly, on account of the delay in sending DPCO draft to the legislative department for vetting. An executive order like DPCO can be issued within four months after the Union Cabinet cleared the policy. In this case, the Cabinet had approved the Pharmaceutical Policy in the first week of February itself. And for what strange reasons, the bureaucrats delayed the process of notification of the new DPCO until the end of May is still not clear to anyone. Then came the stay order from the Bangalore High Court on May 30 challenging the new drug policy and notification of the new DPCO on the basis of the declared parameters. The petitioner, in a PIL, has questioned the government's intention of taking out several essential drugs from price control as per the new drug policy.
A genuine concern of an NGO and its questioning of a likely flare up in prices of essential drugs on account of a new policy is understandable. It is possible to get a rough idea of how many drugs can go out of the new DPCO as per the declared policy parameters. But such an assumption should not be a ground to hold up a policy initiative in a court when actual list of drugs for price control was not decided by the department. The list of drugs for price control need not be strictly as per the policy parameters. There could be special executive considerations for exclusion and inclusion of certain drugs in the DPCO. Now the Bangalore HC having stayed the new policy, the department had a clear responsibility to get the stay vacated at the earliest if it is serious in implementing the policy. But, five months after the policy was stayed, the department has no idea when the stay will finally get vacated. It has been a practice for some time now that powerful pharma companies try their level best to see that their key drugs are not included in the DPCO. Lobbying of that kind has been very much in evidence in Delhi soon after the new policy was announced. If the implementation of the new pharmaceutical policy and the DPCO is still getting indefinitely delayed, it is solely the failure of the department.