The much-awaited national pharmaceutical policy, virtually pending since 2002, is all set to go to the scrutiny of another Group of Ministers (GoM), without any change to the draft prepared by the previous regime under Ram Vilas Paswan.
The Chemicals Ministry has stuck to the old draft as such without altering any proposal and has submitted it to the Cabinet secretariat with a recommendation to be examined by a GoM. The Cabinet will now formally constitute the GoM very soon, highly placed sources said.
There were indications that the ministry under the new minister M K Azhagiri would redraft the policy before submitting it to the Cabinet for consideration. However, the ministry which had included the same in its 100-days programme, chose better to leave it to the discretion of the GoM. "No change has been made to the original draft which was considered by the GoM under the previous government. Let the GoM decide on the proposals," according to sources in the pharma department.
The crux of the draft policy was to bring in price control over 354 drugs instead of existing 74 medicines and it was contented by the industry, especially the large players, leading to inordinate delay in the finalization of the policy. After it was placed among the priority tasks within the next three months, the ministry decided against delaying by making any change to the draft National Pharmaceutical Policy 2006 originally submitted in December 2006. Besides, the new minister is also keen on bringing as many as medicines under price control, as he has time and again promised to ensure affordable medicines to the people.
The cabinet secretariat will now put up the recommendation of the chemical ministry before the cabinet which will decide on the composition of the GoM. Naturally, the recommendation of the administering ministry will be approved by the cabinet. It also means another long round of grinding deliberations and interactions, obviously indicating further delay.
The GoM headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and set up by the prime minister in January 2007 held several meetings but could not make any recommendations. Four meetings of the GoM were held on April 10, 2007, September 12, 2007, January 30, 2008 and April 30, 2008.
Though the next meeting of the GoM was expected to finalise the policy, it never did take place, leaving the much-awaited policy in limbo.