The Pharmacy Council of India (PCI), in the third face of launching the Pharm D course in the country from the year 2008-09, has notified the procedures and fees structure for pharmacy institutions to apply for the council's accreditation to commence the advanced course.

The scheme, published in the website of the council along with the online application forum, insists that the institutions or individuals who apply to start Pharm D course should provide 300-bed hospital facilities as prescribed under the regulation. Further, the institution should provide necessary additional infrastructural facilities as prescribed by the PCI under Appendix - B of Pharm D regulations. However, the institutes cannot open the course in a hired or rented building.

According to the notification, the institutions and individuals interested to start the course in their facility has to submit the application along with a non-refundable application fee of Rs 2 lakh in the form of demand draft in favour of PCI. The fee is charged for registration of application, technical scrutiny, contingent expenditure and two inspections.

Initially, the permission to establish the Pharm D programme will be issued for a period of one year and will be renewed on yearly basis subject to verification of the achievements of annual targets. In order to renew the permission after one year operation, the institutions have to apply for renewal six months prior to the expiry of the initial permission.

"This process of renewal of permission will continue till such time the establishment of all infrastructural facilities and staff requirements prescribed in the Pharm D regulation are completed and approval under section 12 of the Pharmacy Act 1948 for the conduct of Pharm D programme is granted to the institution," explains the scheme notification.

The notification also specifies that the year-wise approval and inspection fee would be Rs 1 lakh and the approval under section 12 which includes fees for two inspections is set as Rs 2 lakh. Apart, verification of compliance of the facility in a later stage would have a charge of Rs 1 lakh even as the annual affiliation fee after approval under section 12 is fixed as Rs 50,000 per year.

As per the schedule for submitting the application and processing is fixed from the year 2009-10, the applicants have to submit the filled standard inspection forum by September 30 and the inspections will be completed by December 31. The approval of central council on the applications will be cleared by March 31 and the PCI will finish the approval process by April 30. However, for the year 2008-09, the last date for submitting the application is fixed as July 31 and the inspections will be completed by August 14, 2008. For the first academic year, the central council will clear the applications by August 30 and the PCI will issue the approval letters on September 10.