The Parliamentary Panel attached to the Chemicals Ministry came down heavily on the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) for its half-hearted approach to get five new schemes, pending for four years, approved by the Planning Commission.

The schemes in question are creation of NPPA Cells in States, scheme for interaction with States, proposal for strengthening the existing monitoring and enforcement, proposal for consumer awareness and publicity through print, electronic and other medium and building robust and responsive statistical system for NPPA.

The panel, headed by Gopinath Munde, said despite its recommendation to expedite the process, the schemes proposed by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) could not be approved so far, resulting into the lapse of money allotted in the budgets for many years.

“The Committee strongly deplore the lethargic and bureaucratic approach of the Department as well as of the Planning Commission. This is evident from the fact that out of the five schemes proposed by the Department which were meant for implementation during Eleventh Five Year Plan only two schemes got ‘in principle’ approval of the Planning Commission and remaining three schemes meant for strengthening and monitoring of prices of drugs and pharmaceuticals have been kept pending even after a lapse of more than three and a half years,” a recent report of the panel said.

“The Committee also regret to note the tardy efforts being made by the Department for pursuing the matter with the Planning Commission for delinking the issue from finalization of the Draft Pharmaceutical Policy. The Committee is also unhappy to note that linking of ‘in principle’ approval to the remaining schemes proposed by NPPA with finalization of the Draft Pharmaceutical Policy is creating hurdles in the path of NPPA for implementation of the remaining three schemes,” it said.

“The Committee, therefore, desire to be apprised of the progress made in this regard along with the reasons for delays on the part of the DoP as well as the Planning Commission in respect of ‘in principle’ approval for remaining three schemes proposed by NPPA and the time limit by which these pending schemes will get in-principle approval and be implemented. The Committee, therefore, strongly reiterate that the DoP should make an all-out effort to get the approval and to implement the five schemes under ‘Proposal for Building Robust and Responsive Statistical Scheme for NPPA’. The Committee desire that they may be apprised of the progress made in this regard within three months of presentation of this report,” the panel said.