Even after more than seven months of the last meeting on April 30, there is no proposal with the Department of Pharmaceuticals to hold the next meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on national pharmaceutical policy headed by Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.
Senior officials in the pharma department said that as of now there is no proposal from Pawar's office to hold the next GoM meeting on pharma policy which has been pending for several years. "Given the hectic political activities in the national capital, it appears that the policy may not see the light of the day before the next government," a senior pharma department official involved in the policy matters said. However, he added that if the GoM wanted to act fast, it can announce the policy any day as the discussions with the stakeholders have already completed and only a final decision is taken.
The seven-member GoM, which was constituted to settle the issue to the satisfaction of all the stakeholders, had held four meetings so far. In the last meeting on April 30 the health ministry raised objection to some key proposals of the policy which was prepared by the chemicals ministry, leaving the meeting inconclusive. In the meeting, Pawar asked the secretaries of the two ministries to resolve the differences and get back to the GoM to conclude the recommendations. Since then, the secretaries of the two ministries met and sorted out the minor differences over the duplication of some schemes in the proposed policy.
Though there are differences among the stake-holders on several proposals in the policy, the one issue that resulted in the inordinate delay of the announcement of the policy is the price control. There are differences even among the ministers on the issue. While Union chemicals minister Ram Vilas Paswan has been insisting on bringing 354 medicines under price control, some of his cabinet colleagues are not in favour of such a step. Cutting across the size of their business, all the pharma manufacturers are going the whole hog to oppose the proposals of price control on the plea that the government monitoring is enough and the market forces will take care of the prices of the medicines.
Ever since the GoM was constituted by Prime Minister in January 2007, it has been moving at snail's pace. A national pharmaceutical policy has been overdue from 2002 when the policy prepared by the then central government was challenged in the Karnataka High Court and in 2003 the Supreme Court kept it at abeyance. A seven-member GoM was constituted to study the draft national pharmaceutical policy 2006 prepared by the union chemicals ministry. Though the GoM held four meetings so far, it could not finalise the policy so far.
Meanwhile, official sources said that Paswan is leaving no stones unreturned to ensure that the policy is announced during the term of this government which will come to an end in May next year if elections are not held earlier. Apart from sending reminders to Pawar's office to hold the meeting, the Chemicals minister is seeking Prime Minister's intervention in early announcement of the policy, a senior official said.