Amidst debates and discussions on setting up of an exclusive export promotion body for pharmaceutical industry, the Basic Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics Export Promotion Council (Chemexcil), which includes the pharma panel at present, is proposing to double the sector's representation in its Committee of Administration.

Chemexcil's administrative committee, which has a total of 18 seats now having representation from all the concerned industry sectors, has 4 representatives from pharma industry. With the new proposal, it will become 8 expanding the total number of seats to 22. The new pharma representatives in the Council will be added from three regions such as 2 from Hyderabad and one each from Kolkata and Bangalore, said Satish Wagh, chairman, Chemexcil, while speaking to Pharmabiz.

While Andhra Pradesh is already represented in the Committee with one seat, the state would have two more seats after the expansion, Wagh said. He informed that the resolution for the committee expansion is already passed in the Council at the last general body meeting held in New Delhi the previous week and proposal has been submitted to the ministry of commerce for its formal clearance.

"We wanted to have more regional representation in the committee especially from the key pharma centers like Hyderabad and Bangalore to alleviate the complaints of the regional members," Wagh stated.

Chemexcil, which is now desperately trying to counter the attempts of the industry associations to form the exclusive export promotion council, is aggressive on enhancing the interaction with the regional manufacturers and exporters. As part of this, the Council has also constituted many regional committees to facilitate the members from the regions more actively. The regional Committee chairmen have been entrusted to conduct member coordination works to provide export promotion services.