The much-awaited third meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM), held after a gap of four months, here on Wednesday, remained inconclusive. This is yet another meet without making any headway towards the finalisation of national pharmaceutical policy.
The seven-member panel, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, held rather a brief meeting and sat through the presentation by the Chemicals Department carrying the details of an NPPA survey to press its stand on expanded price control, sources said.
The GoM, which was scheduled to meet in November, went through quick session without fixing the date for the next meeting or going into detail on other contentious clauses. The policy is already lagging two years behind the schedule.
The third meeting was to be held on November two, but was postponed after the Cabinet meeting took longer time. It is viewed that the meeting was hurriedly arranged this time to fulfil the formality, against the backdrop of a general instruction from the Prime Minister's Office to speed up the works of all pending GoMs.
Sticking to the stern stand of Union Chemicals Minister Ram Vilas Paswan to bring more drugs under price control, his officials presented the findings of a recent NPPA survey before the GoM members. The price regulator had found that prices rose just one per cent yearly for those drugs under the control from 1994 while the prices of drugs out of the control bracket went up sharply. As per the NPPA study, about 87 per cent of samples collected from across the country had increased prices beyond 20 per cent ceiling limit.
The last meeting of the GoM was held on September 12 and it took the views from the industry on the contentious issue of price control on 354 drugs, as proposed in the draft prepared by the Chemicals Ministry.
In November last year, the ministry of chemicals had sent the draft pharma policy to the Cabinet which increased the span of control on 354 essential medicines, besides the existing 74 drugs under Drug Price Control Order, 1995. And in January, the Prime Minister constituted the GoM which held its first meeting on April 10.