All four out of five new schemes submitted by the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) to strengthen the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) in price monitoring, in the beginning of the current Five Year Plan started in 2007 has been held up with the Planning Commission for 'in principle' approval even as the Plan period is nearing its end in March 2012.

According to a statement submitted by the DoP to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers and published by the committee in the report on Demands for Grants, 2010-11, five new schemes namely building robust and responsive statistical system for NPPA, creation of NPPA Cells in states, scheme for interaction with states, proposal for consumer awareness and publicity through print, electronic and other medium and a proposal for strengthening the existing monitoring and enforcement work were submitted to the Planning Commission for the 11th Five Year Plan spanning from year 2007-08 to 2011-12. The total expenditure expected for the schemes amounts to Rs 49.95 crore.

Out of this, only the scheme for building robust and responsive statistical system for NPPA, to build a sound database to make the existing statistical system in NPPA robust and responsive, has received in principle approval from the commission and the department has initiated efforts to collect data related to various pharmaceutical activities in the country in last financial year.

A directory of pharmaceutical manufacturing units has already been prepared under the scheme by listing the addresses of 10,563 manufacturers throughout the country. The department is currently conducting a census of all the pharma manufacturing units, in order to comprehend details relating to composition of the drug production units, their products, investments, R&D, employment, among other information. The database is expected to help the government with reliable and effective inputs for policy making and monitoring. The scheme has a budget expectation of Rs 2.15 crore to complete.

At present, proposal for creation of NPPA cells in states with an amount of Rs 26.38 crore, scheme for interaction with states amounting Rs 1.52 crore, consumer awareness and publicity scheme for Rs 18.28 crore and efforts to strengthen the existing monitoring and enforcement work with Rs 1.62 crore expenditure are pending for consideration from the Commission.

For the current financial year 2010-11, an amount of Rs 7.06 crore, on which Rs 99 lakh is under plan and Rs 6.07 crore under non plan head, has been earmarked for NPPA as budget expenditure. The major part of this is to proceed with the database creating scheme.

Accepting the Demands for Grants, the parliamentary committee reprimanded the planning commission for keeping the other proposals in limbo. “The Committee feel that half-hearted approach can never produce the desired results. They, therefore, strongly recommend that the Department should expeditiously take up the issue with the Planning Commission regarding early approval of the schemes proposed by the NPPA. The Committee may be apprised of the progress made in this regard,” said the panel headed by Ananth Kumar, member of parliament, Lok Sabha.