The Parliamentary Panel attached to the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers has asked the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) to make National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) self-sufficient and resourceful in monitoring the prices of non-scheduled drugs.

“The NPPA regularly monitors the prices of non-scheduled formulations based on the data from IMS (Health). The Committee in this regard regrets to point out that NPPA depends entirely on IMS (Health) data and does not have their own specific system for data collection,” the panel said.

“The Committee, therefore, recommend that Department should take necessary steps to make NPPA self-sufficient and resourceful to carry out its activities regarding monitoring of prices of non-scheduled drugs independently and effectively,” said the standing committee headed by Gopinath Munde.

Noting that present mechanism does not provide any relief to masses in case it is found that prices were arbitrarily fixed, the panel also asked the NPPA to devise a mechanism to proactively monitor the rise in prices of non-scheduled drugs so that the same does not go beyond the permissible limit.

“Regarding monitoring of the prices of non-scheduled drugs, the Committee noted that a list of formulations and their manufacturers are short-listed where there is an increase in price of more than 10 per cent in one year and the annual turnover of the formulation pack exceeds Rs.1 crore. Further, the share of formulations in that segment of the formulation is required to be at least 20 per cent of the market or the medicine is one of the top 3 brands of that group. The manufacturer and/or distributor is asked to give justification for price increase of more than 10 per cent per annum,” the report said.

“If no information is received after the letter and reminder or the reply of the company is not satisfactory, show cause notice is issued to the manufacturer stating as to why action should not be initiated for price fixation under para 10(b) of DPCO, 1995 in larger public interest. In this regard, Committee feels that such a process of monitoring of prices of non-schedule drugs is not satisfactory and deterrent as the manufacturers have the advantage of fixing the prices first provisionally. The present mechanism does not provide any relief to masses in case it is found that prices were arbitrarily fixed,” it pointed out.