The Department of Pharmaceutical's recent directive to the NPPA to clear price revision applications of drug companies within 30 days will not solve the problems being faced by the industry due to rising prices of bulk drugs imported from China because such deadlines are hardly followed by the junior level officials of the NPPA.

"The Pharma Department's directive to the NPPA will not solve the industry's woes arising out of the rising prices of bulk drugs imported from China as such deadlines are not met by the junior level officials of the NPPA. They delay the price revision procedures without assigning any reasons. As per the present norms, price revision applications have to be cleared within 60 days. But it is never followed and by the time an individual application is cleared it will be anything between six months to one year," a senior industry leader said.

Giving an example, he said he had submitted price revision applications for his company's products some months back. But the application is still pending with the department and there has been no communication at all from the NPPA regarding the status of the case. Even if there are some shortcomings in the application, they should have communicated. Though the Pharma Department's intention to expedite the procedures is good, but it is hardly followed by the low level staff, he regretted.

It is because of these procedural delays in the individual price revision applications that the industry has been demanded for suo moto increase in prices of drugs. Major industry associations like IDMA, OPPI and SPIC had urged the government and NPPA to increase the prices of drugs by 20 per cent and bulk drugs by 25 per cent. But the government rejected the industry's demand for any suo moto increase in prices of drugs and asked the industry to file individual applications for price revision to NPPA with supporting documents to prove the increase in input costs.

During the past months, the industry had threatened to stop production of some essential medicines as it was commercially unviable for them due to the steep rise in various input costs.