The Pharma Advisory Forum is likely to be held by the end of this month nearly 10 months after its last meeting. A key agenda at the meet is the industry responses on the cut in excise duty in the Union budget.
The crucial body set up to ensure interactive approach with the industry and wider deliberations may assess the industry responses on the 8 per cent cut in excise duty and mechanism to pass on the benefits of the same to the customers. The date of the meeting is being finalized, sources in the Chemicals Department said.
Health Ministers and secretaries from different States and Union Territories, officials from the chemical department, representatives of NPPA and industry bodies would be attending the meeting.
The meeting would also discuss the status of two committees set up in the first meeting on May 15 and the follow-up actions on its recommendations including earmarking 20 per cent of local development funds of MPs and MLAs for taking up health insurance schemes and setting up of drug banks.
However, very little has been done on the recommendations of the panel so far, reducing the much-advertised body into another lacklustre formality. The Prime Minister's office had virtually turned down the proposal to mobilise Rs 300 crore every year from the share of MPs' funds, after Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan forwarded the same.
The first meeting had also constituted two sub-panels for health insurance and consumer awareness campaigns. The sub-committee, headed by a joint secretary in the chemicals department, to explore possibilities of floating more health insurance schemes and modalities of drug banks, had a couple of meetings but could not make considerable headway in finalizing a concrete proposal so far, it is learnt.
The health secretaries from the States of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar and Mizoram, representatives of four pharma associations, Drug Controller of Gujarat, representatives of AIOCD, consumer bodies and insurance companies are also members of the panel.
The other sub-group, chaired by NPPA chairman, held some consultations with NGOs and other groups to frame modalities of consumer awareness campaigns. It was also expected to recommend on hiring an agency to run the same. Both the panels will submit status reports, if not recommendations in the next meeting.