Looking to make it more transparent and to reign in the erring companies effectively, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on Thursday launched an online complaints and reddressal facility, and assured action within 30 days of the complaints.
Union Chemicals Minister Ram Vilas Paswan launched the facility, developed with the support of National Informatics Centre. He also released the first directory of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Units in India, 2007. And in due recognition of the efforts and active functioning of the national price regulator, the NPPA has been granted `ISO 9001-2000' certification. The quality management certification was given by Bureau of Indian Standards.
Briefing on the online complaint facility, NPPA chairman Ashok Kumar said individuals and organizations can file complaints in the specified format on overcharging, sale of drugs without NPPA approval and non-availability or shortage of medicines. He assured that action would be initiated within next 30 days. It would also help disseminate information on schedule drug prices and their availability.
To facilitate online access to information on drug pricing and e-filing of complaints, the NPPA also tied up with some NGOs in the North East and Jammu and Kashmir to run as many as 700 centres on a pilot basis.
The NPPA also released the fourth edition of compendium of prices fixed and revised till February 15, 2008, both in English and Hindi. The part of it carries notifications in the case of formulation packs. In the second part, the ceiling prices notified under para 9 and para 11 of DPCO have been compiled in respect of scheduled bulk drugs.
The comprehensive directory, first such effort, has the list of 10563 manufacturing units across the country, put in State-wise alphabetical order. It gives names, addresses, telephone numbers and website and email ids separately for formulations and bulk drugs.
Lauding the efforts by the NPPA, Paswan announced ex-gratia payments to the staff and chairman of the agency for their `outstanding works'.