The Federation of Medical Representatives Association of India (FMRAI) has finalized the roadmap of their action plan for the year. The association is now conducting state level workshops to educate their members about the proposals.

The state level workshops have been completed in Kerala and a similar one will be conducted in Tamil Nadu on June 10. The workshops throughout the country will be completed within the next two months and later the roadmap activities will be implemented in a phased manner.

According to sources from the FMRAI, the roadmap was finalized during their working committee held at New Delhi last month. The FMRAI in its roadmap will be voicing their concern about the drug pricing, allocating funds for the public sector pharmaceutical companies like IDPL and HAL, unfair trade practices and marketing practices, and they will also be demanding central government intervention into patent related issues.

"We have been asking the government to bring down the excise duty on MRP of non-essential medicines to four per cent and if possible not charge any excise duty on essential medicines. This will help in providing medicines to the consumers at an affordable price. And yet another demand of ours has been to allocate funds for the public sector pharma companies. By taking such an initiative the government will not only be able to provide less priced medicines to the people, but also boost self reliance rather than importing medicines," said sources.

They will also be asking the central government to take up the patent issue seriously and get involved in it to protect the interest of the Industry. The FMRAI will be asking the government to take suitable measures to protect the patent laws in the country, which are being misused, by the multinational countries to make huge profits.

As part of their demands that are aimed for the benefit of the members of the FMRAI, the association has planned to ask for the amendment of the sales promotion act thereby expanding the role of sale promotion employees to other industries. They have also demanded for giving workman status to the medical reps and bringing them directly under the ID ACT.

The FMRAI has also asked for chalking out job specifications and working hours for the medical reps etc. It will also be taking steps to ensure that the various state governments implement the minimum wages act for the benefit of the sales reps.

"Many of these demands are lying stagnant with the government for sometime now. We want the government to pay attention to these issues this time, for the benefit of the members. We will start the implementation programmes once the education workshops for our members are over," said sources.