Though the government is yet to officially accept it, the much awaited pharmaceutical policy pending for the past eight years has almost been dumped, with no progress seen in this regard over one year now.
The Group of Ministers (GoM), set up to examine the draft policy, is yet to hold a single meeting even after almost one year and with the new chemicals minister M K Alagiri showing little interest on it, the fate of the policy is more than uncertain. “We have written letters a couple of times for expediting the matter, but there was no response from any sides. As of now, nothing is happening on this front,” a top official of the Pharmaceutical Department said.
Already burdened with lots of responsibilities within and outside the government, the GoM head Sharad Pawar has reportedly taken a lacklustre stand on the early finalisation of the draft policy, it is learnt. Unlike in the case of former chemicals minister Ram Vilas Paswan who was always pushing the matter and got it almost finalised during his term, the present chemicals minister also is not so keen about pushing the matter, it is learnt.
On the possibility of the GoM meeting in near future, the department official quipped; 'no idea'. The industry, especially those opposing the provisions to increase the scope of price control under the policy, also gleefully forgot the case of the draft, leaving only a few public interest groups now to press for the policy.
Though the UPA government, coming into power again, included the policy as a priority agenda for the 100-day programme, nothing has happened during the last one year. Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, law minister Veerappa Moily, commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma, chemicals and fertilizers minister M K Alagiri, deputy chairman planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and science and technology minister Prithviraj Chavan are the other members of the GoM.
The national pharmaceutical policy has been pending since 2002, after draft Pharmaceutical Policy 2002 was aborted. After many committees and reports, a final draft was submitted in November 2006 and GoM was set up by the Prime Minister in January 2007 with Pawar as the head. Even though the GoM held four meetings on April 10, 2007, September 12, 2007, January 30, 2008 and April 30, 2008, it failed to make any acceptable recommendations.