The National Productivity Council has recommended enhancement of bank loan limit upto Rs 2 crore under the proposed Pharmaceutical Technology Upgradation Fund (PTUF). It also called for making available the fund to closed SSI pharma units but willing to revive to meet Schedule M requirements.

The Council, which was asked to assess the SSI units, is learnt to have submitted its report after making on-site surveys and holding meetings with different small scale associations. The Rs 560-crore scheme was to be implemented from April 2007, but was held up because of the delay in assessing the ground realities. It is expected to be formally notified after finalising the same based on the council report.

The Council has recommended making available the scheme also to closed units willing to revive and to ayurvedic units complying with Schedule `T' norms, along with the running units. It was assessed that about 50 closed units and 4000 running units would get the benefits of the scheme, it is learnt.

It also recommended to develop a check list based on Schedule M, Drugs and Cosmetics Rules 1945, WHO Guidelines, Electricity Act, EP Act, Factories Act and other statutory provisions applicable to SSI pharma industry on the lines of Safety Audit check list (IS 144489) immediately. This would help greatly the SSI units in assessing their level of compliance besides any monitoring agency, according to the Council.

While agreeing with Rs 1 crore loan limit in most of the cases, the Council felt that the units requiring complete revamp may be requiring loans upto Rs 2 crore. This may be taken up by the Chemicals Department on case to case basis on the advice from NIPER, the council suggested.

Instead of the present operational period of April 2007 to March, 2009, the report has suggested to make it one year from the date of official notification of the scheme. The council also recommended that the investments made after July 1, 2005, when the Schedule M norms were implemented, may also be covered under PTUF. As per the present proposal, only the investments from April 2007 are covered.

It was recommended that Rs 10 lakh of the scheme be allocated for organising 6-8 workshops through NIPER or any other similar agency at major SSI clusters covering all aspects like building, equipment, quality, water treatment, documentation, computerisation, environment management, occupational, health safety, export and marketing in specific reference to GMP, as many of the units are not aware of the various aspects related to Schedule M norms.

While suggesting the inclusion of R&D expenses under the scheme, the Council said the co-operative banks and some renowned private banks should also be included in the list of banks for the scheme.

Among the eligible parameters, the Council felt that land expenses be excluded. But it has recommended to broaden the scope by including documentation, improvement of lab facility, purchase of IT hardware and software, latest technology including energy efficient machines and registration fee.

According to the draft scheme, government would reimburse 5 per cent point of interest on the loans taken from scheduled banks and financial institutions and SIDBI would act as nodal agency.