The Ayurvedic Drug Manufacturers' Association (ADMA) plans to submit a list of all the licensed manufacturers in the country to the Department of Ayush soon. The Department of Ayush in a meeting that was held in January 24 had requested ADMA to collect the information on all the licensed manufacturers and submit it to the Department. It is believed that the department is initiating this so that they can update their database on the licensed manufacturers in the country with the collaboration of the industry.

As a response to the request, ADMA has already started the process of collecting information. According to Chandrakanth Bhanushali, general secretary, ADMA, soon after the meeting the Association had submitted a letter to all the ASU associations and the respective drug licensing authorities in the country to share the information about the same.

Bhanushali informed that they are currently in the process of collecting the information and since it is a nationwide programme it will take some time to collect and process it. He added, “We request all the licensed manufacturer's to come forward and help us in gathering the data since as it will help the department to have an authenticated database of the industry. As of now we have received data from Maharashtra, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka and are expecting to receive the responses from other states soon.”

As per the data that was received by ADMA till now, Maharashtra is in the top with 603 licensed manufacturers in the state, whereas Haryana ranks second with 239 licensed manufacturers, Karnataka third with 179 licensed manufacturers and Himachal Pradesh fourth with merely 112 licensed manufacturers in the state. The rest of the data from other states are yet to come, only after that will ADMA be able to tell which state had the largest or lowest number of licensed manufacturers.

Apart from collecting the data on the licensed manufacturers in the country ADMA will also undertake the responsibility to segregate the data so that they will have the information on actual manufacturing license holder and loan licence holder.

“As of now we do not have a database that gives information on whether the licence holder is actual maufacturer or loan licensee. What we are planning to do is not only collect the data on the licensed manufacturers in the country but also segregate it according to status of the license holder. This will be the first time that such an initiative is taken for the ASU sector which will surely help in having a more structured and categorised information on the industry.”