The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) has launched an initiative to set up Central Pharma Facilities Development Centres (CPFDC) at the proposed clusters aimed at creating common facilities for the pharmaceutical industry, especially for the SME sector.

The Department has already called for expression of interest from the reputed private consulting organisations for preparing the `techno-economic feasibility report' for the establishment of CPFDC in one or more clusters being planned by the department.

"Based on the demands of the Indian pharmaceutical industry and the unique requirements/projections of the pharmaceutical industry in the global economic scenario, the government notified the establishment of DoP under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers in July, 2008. The Vision of the DoP is to catalyze and encourage innovation in pharmaceutical sector and to enable the Indian pharmaceutical industry to play a leading role in the global market. For this, world class quality manufacturing facilities are required. However, these are very capital intensive activity and cannot be established and opened by SMEs at their own due to technical and financial constraints," the department said.

These studies would help DoP to better formulate and introduce proposed Schemes for internationally competitive quality, productivity and innovative manufacture of pharma products by the SMEs, according to the notification inviting EOIs from the experienced consulting firms.

The department was planning to give a final shape to the proposed cluster development programme at least by the end of this year and had held discussions already with a couple of States. Haryana has already identified sufficient land at Rohtak for developing the cluster and the DoP wants the detailed project report for the same before the actual works could start.

The Centre has identified some cities like Chennai, Hyderabad and a few places in Maharashtra for setting up the cluster-based projects by providing state-of-the-art common facilities in collaboration with the respective State governments. The project is expected to help the SME sector enhance quality, productivity and innovative capabilities, as the financial constraints restrict them to be competitive by laying down the required infrastructure.