Amid growing concerns among the pharmaceutical industry on the issue of bringing more medicines under price control, the Sharad Pawar-led Group of Ministers (GoM) on national pharma policy is meeting today which may formalise its final recommendation to the Prime Minister.

According to senior officials in the chemicals ministry, only the seven ministers of the GoM have been invited for the meeting. Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, Health Minister Anbumani Ramdoss, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, Law Minister H R Bhardwaj and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia are the members of the 7-member GoM.

There is no special agenda in the meeting. Sharad Pawar has called the meeting of the GoM at 4.30 p.m. on April 30. That there is no separate agenda for the meeting clearly points that this may be the final discussion on the issue between the ministers, the official said. Besides, the chemicals minister Ramvilas Paswan is also on record in the recent Pharmaceutical Advisory Forum meeting saying that the national pharma policy will be finalised soon.

This is the fourth meeting of GoM which has already taken the views of most of the stake-holders including the industry associations. Apart from the big pharma associations like IPA, IDMA and OPPI, the GoM separately heard the views of the small and medium pharma associations like SPIC.

According to sources even after hearing all the stake-holders including the industry and the NGOs (who represent the consumers), there is wide gap among the ministers on the issue of bringing more medicines under price control to make them within the reach of common man.

While some ministers subscribe to the industry's argument that there is no need of bringing more medicines under price control as competition will automatically bring down the prices and the government should only monitor the prices, some ministers including Ramvilas Paswan are going the whole hog for bringing more medicines under price control on the plea that only direct government intervention will ensure cheaper medicines to the common man.