The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), in association with the prominent trade bodies in the pharma sector, will organise a fresh round of workshops in several places of the country to further brief the industry players about the Schedule M norms and the procedures, as still many units were found to be functioning without adopting Schedule M norms.

The DoP will also assess the existing bottlenecks in securing loans by the small and medium scale manufacturers for going Schedule M compliant. The decision to organise further workshops to educate the SME units was taken at a meeting by the officials of different departments including health and pharmaceuticals along with the stakeholders recently.

According to the plan, the Confederation of Indian Pharmaceutical Industry (CIPI) will organise workshops in the North Indian centres while the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA) would do so in Western India. Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association (BDMA) will arrange the workshops in the south Indian centres.

The meeting also decided to involve the representatives of banks and financial institutes along with regulatory officials in the workshops with a view to sort out problems of loan disbursement and other related problems being faced by the SSI units. The Department will also ask all pharma associations to train the member units about the standard operating procedures on the subject of Schedule M, sources said.

The Department, after pushing amendment of the Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme (CLCSS), had organised a series of similar workshops in association with the pharmaceutical bodies and the MSME. The workshops were held at Goa, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Thane, Kolkotta, and Chennai. This was done to prompt the SSI units for availing the benefits through CLCSS.

Holding of workshops and close interactions between the industry and the officials including development commissioner (MSME) has been one of the three main strategies prepared by the department to popularize the scheme. Apart from this, the department will also distribute brochures and related materials and release advertisements through the media as part of the strategy.