The Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers has called for a review meeting of all public sector drugs and pharmaceutical industries under its fold. The meeting, convened by the Union C&F Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, is to take place on June 3, 2004, it is learnt. With most of the pharma PSUs in the country reeling under perennial problems, the meeting acquires special significance.

The minister, who has already expressed his desire to maintain Hindustan Antibiotics Limited (HAL) in the public sector, will be looking forward to find out better ways to revive all loss making PSUs under its administrative control.

While the revival plan for HAL is certain, cases of other PSUs like Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL) are likely to be taken up for further discussion during the meeting.

The public sector units which are to present their cases before the meeting include Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Limited.

The minister is also known to be inclined towards strengthening the price control mechanism and bring down the prices of several drugs that are currently out of the scheduled list under Drugs Control Price Order. The minister may ask National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority to start monitoring the prices of all drugs that have a turnover above Rs 1 crore.