As Pharmabiz revealed earlier, the Indian Pharmaceutical Congress Association (IPCA), the organising body of the largest annual pharma event in the country - the Indian Pharmaceutical Congress (IPC) for the last 56 years - is in the midst of a crisis due to the dissent of four constituent organisations against the dominance of the Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA), and over issues like lack of proper representation and benefit sharing.
The crisis has snowballed to the edge of a possible disintegration of IPCA, as the four rebel organisations - the Indian Pharmacy Graduates Association (IPGA), The Indian Hospital Pharmacists Association (IHPA), Association of Pharmacy Teachers of India (APTI) and All India Drug Control Officers Confederation (AIDCOC), recently threatened to discontinue their association with IPCA if the overall situation continues to be ‘unfriendly and downright hostile’ and the associations would resort to ‘legal recourse in order to rectify the situation’.
Subodh P Priolkar, President of IPA, reacts to the Pharmabiz reports on the issue and says ‘time has come to reveal our feelings and stand’, in this interview with P.B. Jayakumar. Excerpts:
The dissenting associations complain that IPA, the biggest partner association in IPCA, is showing a total disregard to the opinion of the four constituents on the need to bring in proper democratic functioning of IPCA. Now they are threatening a boycott from IPCA. What is your reaction to the issue…
As you and me know, I accept there is some difference in IPCA, mainly on three issues - equal voting rights, sharing of benefits and hosting of the Indian Pharmaceutical Congress. This is the first time anyone asks us what is IPA’s stand on this issue, and I think I will have to openly clarify a few facts. All the industry professionals in India know IPA and its state branches shoulder the responsibility, pain and efforts in the conduct of IPCs every year. The co-operation and support of most of these ‘so called rebel organizations’ were minimal in the conduct of almost all the IPCs held so far, and it was IPA and its state branch members which worked hard to make every IPC a success story. This is a fact everyone agrees. I am of the opinion that those who work hard should get the benefits. To be frank, why now all are eager to conduct IPCs? This is because conduct of IPC now ensures good money to the organisers. I am not against sharing of benefits. IPA and IPGA collaborated to organise the IPC held in New Delhi and we were ready to share its benefits. In Pune, the money was shared between many organisations.
When this issue came up some time back, it was me who first suggested a compromising formula. I personally met S W Deshpande and Sivanand, the leaders of two these constituents, and suggested 50 per cent of the profits should remain with the LoC, and the remaining 50 per cent could be divided equally in between the IPCA constituents. I also suggested each of the IPCA members could conduct IPC every alternate year, though I am still not sure about the capabilities of some of the associations to conduct a mega event like IPC. Until now they have not responded to the suggestion. So far I have not received any communication, either by phone, email or letter from any of these organisations on this issue. If they are eager to solve this issue, they could have openly discussed their problems with us.
Another major grudge of the dissenting organisations is about proper representation in IPCA and they demand equal representation in IPCA. Your comments…
As per the present structure of IPCA, IPA can nominate 8 members and the other organizations have 2 members each. Apart from this, 5 members are nominated by the IPCA secretariate. The dissenting organisations allege these members are IPA nominees. This is totally wrong. They are nominated by IPCA and are from different organisations. We don’t have any role in this.
When they demand this, they should introspect how many of its nominees regularly attend the IPCA meetings. If the IPA nominees had not been there, many of the IPCA meetings had have to be abandoned for lack of members to convene a quorum as per the IPCA constitution.
The associations complain that IPA, the biggest partner association in IPCA, is showing a total disregard to the opinion of the four constituents on the need to bring in proper democratic functioning of IPCA. Your comments…
These organizations should remember they had signed to comply with the constitution and laws governing the functioning of IPCA, when they joined the IPCA. They demand accountability and transparency… Tell me how many of these associations are functioning with accountability and transparency? Tell me whether any of these associations publish audited annual results as IPA does? Tell me whether any of these associations conduct state and central elections, annually, like IPA conducts? Why don’t you enquire this? Talk about activities. IPA is an internationally reputed organization with over 11, 000 members and have affiliation in FIP and working arrangements with platforms like SEARPHARM forum for the betterment of pharma professionals in India. We conduct at least 70 programmes in a year. Do these organisations conduct 7.5 programmes in a year? Do they conduct their internal monthly meetings, at least? Apart from AIDCOC, which fought with the Government on drug inspectors issue some years ago, I don’t remember any noticeable professional issue taken up by these organisations to the government for the benefit of pharma industry. These organisations have become ‘personal properties’ of some people with vested interests. Their interests are different.
When you demand equality, I feel it should be weighted equality.
Don’t you think this counter attack will further fuel the problem, instead of finding an amicable way to solve the issue?
See, I had aired the same feelings before the IPCA committee. Time has come to open up our feelings. We are ready for the dialogue table. If they want to solve the issue, dialogues should continue. IPCA is trying to solve it. These federating associations did not accept the Gopalakrishna Moorthy committee suggestions and also efforts of the IPCA leadership. Now they threaten us to take to the court as reported in Pharmabiz. If this is the stand, how will you solve the problem? As far as IPA is concerned, we approach this issue with an open mind. Dialogues should continue, if the issue has to be solved.
It is a fact that most of the members of a particular industry organization are also members of one or more other industry organizations. IPA is not an exception…
I sincerely feel a stage has come where pharmacy professionals need not be active to lead so many organisations. All are meant for the betterment of the industry. So why can’t we concentrate our energies and skills for a particular organisation, instead of running around all the organisations. I resigned some other professional organisation leadership positions when I was selected as IPA President. We are in the process of reviewing to mandate no office bearer of IPA at central or state level should be office bearer of any other federating associations.
There is a general complaint that IPC has become more of a ‘pomp mela’, than a serious industry congregation discussing the issues. Your comments….
I totally agree with this. Maximum expenditure is spent on food and entertainment now. Why should the organisers provide accommodation? Now about 8000 delegates attend the congress, mostly pharmacy students. The organisers want to show numbers, and of course, more delegate fee means more money to organisers. The event should be restricted only to final year pharmacy graduates and postgraduates, as per the rule.
Though the pharmaceutical industry supports in the conduct of IPC monetarily, numerous industry professionals are not keen to even visit it. This is a serious thing. Out of these 8000 delegates, even 1000 are not from industry. The IPCA should introspect why IPC is not able to attract all the pharma professionals. It is high time IPC should be converted as a major pharma event like CPHI, attracting people and business from all over the world.
The focus of IPCA should be in this direction to improve the quality of the conference, instead of troubling and fighting over silly issues.