In spite of the the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP)'s advisory and subsequent reminder to the Haryana government to reduce the eligibility criteria for participating in drug purchase tenders for pharma companies from Rs 35 crore to the earlier level of Rs 3 crore, the state government did not take any steps so far in this direction.

According to sources, the state government did not pay much heed to the DoP advisory and the eligibility criteria for participating in drug purchase tenders for pharma companies remains at Rs 35 crore, rendering the entire small and medium scale pharma enterprises ineligible for government drug supply.

DoP secretary Asok Kumar had sent an advisory to Haryana chief secretary Urvashi Gulati on March 31 this year and a reminder on April 23, asking the state government to amend the eligibility criteria for participating in drug purchase tenders for pharma companies as per earlier levels on the ground that such hike in annual turnover requirement suddenly would very much harm the growth of almost all of SS1 and medium units as a criteria of more than Rs 35 crore turnover are generally fulfilled by the MNCs or large companies only.

The Haryana government had some time back raised the annual turnover criterion for participating in drug purchase tenders from Rs 3 crore to Rs 35 crore for the purpose of putting an end to supply of substandard medicines by weeding out unscrupulous manufacturers from bidding for government supply. The Haryana government order virtually disqualified the small and medium pharma companies from participating in the tenders for supplying medicines to the state government departments.

But the DoP secretary in his advisory countered the Haryana government's plea in this regard and said that 40 per cent of pharmaceutical production by value in India is done by the SSI pharma companies on job-work basis on behalf of the large pharma companies or MNCs. This indicates that these SSI pharma units are capable of producing quality medicines at reasonable and competitive prices.

The DoP secretary had also advised the Haryana government to make an all-out effort to help the SSI pharma sector in the country due to its huge potential of increasing industrial and economic prosperity as well as being a source of employment across a wide range of skill sets.

Apart from Haryana government, various other central government departments like the Railways, ESIC, Defence, RITES, etc had also increased manifold the turnover criterion for medicine procurement. The DoP is likely to take up the issue with these departments also.