The annual general council meeting of Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives' Association (FMRAI) will be held from February 8th to 10th at Allahabad.

The meeting will discuss the challenges faced by the medical and sales representatives from various fronts and will prepare strategies to counter them in the coming year. The demand to enforce minimum wage structure to the medical and sales representatives, to be accepted as workmen all over the country, in order to attain trade union rights for collective bargaining at least in the big organised drug companies will be discussed in the meeting, according to the sources.

"The workers demand on minimum wage structure is not enforced, as the labour departments of the states are not keen in implementing the law," K. Natarajan, president, Tamil Nadu Medical and Sales Representatives' Association (TNMSRA) told Pharmabiz. He said that the statutory working rules should also be defined by the Central Government.

General demands on reducing drug price for the benefit of public, centralising various pharmaceutical regulatory agencies and related departments under the health ministry, revival of public sector pharmaceutical units like Hindustan Antibiotics Limited (HAL) and Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL) and need for setting up a people oriented drug policy will also be on the agenda.

Though the PSUs like HAL and IDPL are on a revival path, the steps taken so far not satisfactory, according to S. Sukumar, secretary, FMRAI. He said that the revival plans are not focusing on large scale production of essential and life saving drugs so as to make them cheap.

The annual general council meeting will discuss the matters and plan the future activities including the agitations. New general council members will also be selected in the meeting.