The All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), an apex body of more than 5 lakh chemists and stockists spread across the country, has urged the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) to retain a minimum trade margin of 10 per cent for wholesalers and 20 per cent for retailers on MRP in the national pharmaceutical pricing policy 2011 (NPPP 2011).

In its comments on the draft NPPP-2011, AIOCD said that this is the minimum to meet their statutory obligations, and to maintain high standards of storage like handling, documentation, of modern drugs. A mechanism similar to Para 13 of the proposed NPPP-2011 is envisaged, wherein the trade margins too need to be revised along with the change in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI).

In past, the Kelkar Committee and Hathi Committee Reports had acknowledged the role of distribution and envisaged reasonable margins for trade channel that plays fundamental role in distribution of medicines in every part of India. “Accordingly, your ministry had mandated reasonable trade margins for retail and wholesale dealers in previous Price Control Orders. However the margins have remained stagnant for last more than two decades and needs to be seriously considered for the existence of this noble trade,” it said.

The AIOCD said that unless the reasonable trade margins are maintained in the forthcoming DPCO-2011, the supply chain will be adversely affected. If the aspiration of supply channel is ignored, it will become more difficult to manage the harmonized supply channel and, we are afraid, that in absence of reasonable margins, the standards of distribution will deteriorate affecting the potency and integrity of medicines.

“While we endorse the objective of your government to check and put control on indiscriminate prices of medicines, we also feel that the supply chain margin also needs to be addressed so as to make its distribution viable,” the AIOCD said and added, “We are encouraging our members to install computers for proper documentation; install refrigerators with power back-up for proper storage of vaccines create appropriate shelf space for storage-handling of medicines and hiring qualified person to supervise the operations. All these entail capital investment. We do not want our members to compromise on these aspects of storage, transport and handling of medicines.”