The much-awaited meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on national pharma policy led by Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has once again been postponed. Now the meeting, which will take up the all-important issue of national pharma pricing policy (NPPP) will be held on April 25, subject to the availability of the union ministers who are members of the GoM.

According to sources, the meeting of the GoM was scheduled to be held on April 4 but could not be held due to the fluid political situation in the national capital and also the pressing engagements some of the ministers who are the members of the Group. This is the second time the crucial GoM meeting is being postponed. In fact, the GoM was to hold its first meeting on March 27 this year, but was postponed at the eleventh hour due to the other more compelling engagements of some of the members of the Group.

Meanwhile, minister of state of chemicals and fertilisers Srikant Jena has also been included in the Group. Other members of the GoM are Ghulam Nabi Azad, minister of health and family welfare; Kapil Sibal, minister of human resource development and communications and information technology; Anand Sharma, minister of commerce and industry; M K Alagiri, minister of chemicals and fertilisers; Salman Khurshid, minister of law and justice and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission.

The meeting holds immense significance as it has to take a vital call on the ticklish issue of changing the earlier proposal by the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) of market-based NPPP for the essential drugs or capping the prices according to the government procurement as suggested by many stakeholders. As the DoP could not take its stand on the issue, it has been decided to leave the option to the GoM for the final say.

The present GoM under Pawar was constituted by the central government in September 2009 to decide the NPPP which has been hanging in balance for several years. But, it is yet to hold its first meeting.

The previous GoM on pharma was also headed by Sharad Pawar and was set up by the prime minister in January 2007. It held several meetings but could not make any recommendations. Four meetings of the GoM were held on April 10, 2007, September 12, 2007, January 30, 2008 and April 30, 2008.  Though the next meeting of the GoM was expected to finalise the policy, it never did take place, leaving the much-awaited policy in limbo.