The pharma industry has urged Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to constitute a task force to examine the entire gamut of drug procurement criteria of various government agencies such as Railways, SAIL, RITES, etc and some state governments to standardise norms in government procurement of medicines.



Seeking the Prime Minister's intervention in the matter, the industry has said that standardisation of norms in government drug procurement will go a long way in making available good quality affordable medicines in the country, apart from providing stability to the Indian pharma sector, particularly the small and medium enterprises engaged in supplying such medicines thereby enabling them to perform better.



Till some time back, the central and state governments and the public sector undertakings have been procuring medicines through open tender applications without any restrictions like turnover criterion. However, during the last 2-3 years, some of the state governments and some public sector undertakings imposed several conditions which have literally barred the Indian companies from participating in the tendeRs.The new conditions are based on extraneous considerations like the size of the company, its market share and turnover, etc, rather than the issue of quality, efficacy and affordability of medicines, industry sources said.



While SAIL had stipulated that only the top 100 companies based on sales turnover can apply for tenders, Railways had put a condition that the turnover of the applicant must be minimum of Rs.50 crore for participating in tenders for drug procurement. The South Eastern Coalfield has been insisting on a valid WHO-GMP and CoPP for participating in its tenders.



Besides, some state governments including Delhi and Haryana had fixed qualifying turnover as Rs.35 crore for participating in tendeRs.Moreover, some state governments like Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, etc stipulate that CoPP, which is issued by the drug authorities only for export purposes, is a requirement for eligibility for participating in tenders or rate contract applications. This, the industry feels, discriminates against the companies supplying the domestic market only and prevents these domestic companies from supplying good quality affordable medicines.



The industry is of the view that these conditions prevent the supply of quality medicines at competitive prices. They also deny a level playing field to the small and medium manufacturers in the country and is contrary to the government policy of encouraging SMEs in the country.