The Planning Commission has informed the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) that it would consider integrating the five pending new schemes proposed by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) and being chased by the DoP for over four years to get the approval.
The schemes are creation of NPPA Cells in States, project for interaction with States, proposal for strengthening the existing monitoring and enforcement, proposal for consumer awareness and publicity through print, electronic and other medium and building robust and responsive statistical system for NPPA. Out of the five schemes, two had got 'in-principle' approval by the Planning Commission but could not be taken off, resulting into the lapse of allotted money.
Recently, the DoP was criticised by the Parliamentary Panel attached to the Chemicals Ministry for its half-hearted approach to get five news schemes approved. The Committee deplored 'the lethargic and bureaucratic approach of the Department as well as of the Planning Commission' in this regard.
“Out of five components of the scheme for strengthening of NPPA, Planning Commission has accorded in principle approval for two components concerning “Building Robust & Responsive Statistical System for NPPA” and proposal for “Consumer awareness and publicity through Print, Electronic and other medium” in March, 2008 and 15th March, 2011 respectively. For the remaining components, Planning Commission in a recent letter intimated that proposal may be considered to be integrated in 12th Plan schemes of NPPA subject to its relevance and establishment of need. Accordingly, the issue is being considered in NPPA/Department,” sources said.
The Planning Commission had sanctioned Rs.69 crore towards implementation of these schemes during the current 11th Plan period. But it could not be utilised yet. “New schemes proposed by the Department got delayed in finalization due to the time taken by procedural/appraisal/approval mechanism. Therefore, utilization of funds earmarked for the schemes was delayed,” sources in the DoP clarified.