The Chennai High Court has directed the drug manufacturers in Tamilnadu to approach the Tamil Nadu Medical Service Corporation (TNMSC) to consider the 15 percent price preference offered to SSI units based in Tamilnadu while purchasing drugs and surgical items for the state run PHCs and hospitals.
Dismissing a writ filed by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Tamil Nadu (PMA) last month pleading the court's intervention to direct the TNMSC to allow the price preference for the local drug manufacturers in the tender process as per a Government Order, the court felt that the court could not act on assumptions of the petitioner. The court directed the petitioner to approach the TNMSC to get a clarification on the matter. As per the court's directive, PMA will be sending a letter to TNMSC asking for the clarification with a ten-day deadline, said B.Sethuraman, Hon. Secretary of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Tamilnadu, to Pharmabiz.
TNMSC, the nodal agency for procuring drugs and surgical items for the state run PHCs and hospitals, has been 'misinterpreting' the State Government rules related to price preference for the last few years, and the local manufacturers have not been able to get the benefits so far, PMA had complained to the court. The Tamilnadu Transparency in Tenders Act 1998, and amended by the Tamilnadu Transparency in Tenders (Amendement) Act, Rule 29 (f) say that 'the evaluation and comparison shall include fifteen percent price preference for domestic small scale industrial units and ten percent price preference for the Public Sector Undertakings of the Government in respect of products and quantities manufactured by them', note TNPMA sources. However, TNMSC had not been considering this while processing the tenders, the association had alleged. The issue has been before the court for more than two years.
TNMSC's annual purchases amounts to Rs.100 to Rs.130 crores in a year, and the price preference in purchases would be a relief to the TN pharmaceutical manufacturers, most of them in the SSI sector and facing closure threat due to market conditions and other reasons, feels Sethuraman. The current year tender process is already on, and so far, TNMSC has not considered the association demands, said sources.