The government will soon give its green signal to the much delayed Pharmaceutical Technology Upgradation Fund (PTUF) which was stuck in the bureaucratic red-tapism for several months. A high-level inter-ministerial meeting is scheduled for March 2 to take the final call on the matter and the government is likely to start disbursing the Rs 560-crore fund by the middle of March, it is learnt.

According to sources, the Union chemicals ministry is keen to start the scheme, which was aimed at providing financial assistance to small and medium drug manufacturing units for the technological upgradation of their manufacturing facilities in compliance with the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Senior officials in the ministry is learnt to have convinced the other concerned officials about the urgency to disburse the fund without much delay.

The government was to start disbursing the fund early last year, but due to several bureaucratic hiccups, the scheme got delayed. Union chemicals ministry had almost finalised the scheme in October last year and had sent the scheme to the finance ministry and the Planning Commission for their green signal. But, the Planning Commission took strong objection to the scheme on the pleas that there is already a government scheme on this purpose. The Commission asked the chemicals ministry to revive the Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme (CLCSS) which was discontinued by the Planning Commission from the current financial year due to lack of proper response from the industry.

The Planning Commission's objection to the PTUF scheme was that since there is already a scheme CLCSS, launched by the Ministry of Small Scale Industries for the technology upgradation of small and medium industries, there is no need to launch another scheme for the same purpose.

Thousands of small drug manufacturers in the country were eagerly looking forward for the launch of the scheme to upgrade their facilities to meet the Schedule M norms. Thousands of small drug manufacturers have already closed down their units after the introduction of Schedule M by the government due to financial difficulties. Under the PTUF scheme, the government proposes to provide five per cent interest subsidy on loans.

The chemicals ministry mooted the PTUF scheme after the industry's poor response to the CLCSS scheme. There were few takers for the CLCSS scheme due to several complicated procedures which the SSI units found it difficult to follow.