The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers may relax the need for changing the price band of all drugs that are already available in the market into MRP inclusive mode. Instead, the notification may say that only the new packs marketed from July 1 need adhere to the changed rules. The department is known to have asked the industry associations to come forward with their comments on the proposed notification to make necessary changes before officially announced.
The "proposed notification" details how the government intends to amend Drug Price Control Order 1995 for printing MRP inclusive of all taxes on the labels of medicines. The proposed Drugs (Prices Control) Amendment Order, 2006 would make changes in Paragraph 14 of DPCO 1995 to insert terms like "maximum retail price" and "inclusive of all taxes".
The current proposal of the ministry is to see that all packs, marketed before the commencement of the proposed notification, would also have to contain MRP inclusive rates within three months of notification. In response to this, the industry associations had pointed out that it is practically impossible for them to trace all the drugs and make necessary changes.
It should be noted that the Pronab Sen Committee, which looked into the pricing aspects of medicines last year, had emphasized the need for MRP inclusive of all taxes. The committee had noted that under the provisions of Packaged Commodities Rules1977, all commodities sold in pre-packaged form are required to have a label declaration of retail sale price in the form of MRP inclusive of all taxes and wanted it to be made applicable to medicines also.