Members of the Tamil Nadu Chemists & Druggists Association (TNCDA) will not down the shutters of their shops on May 10 despite instructions from the national trade body, All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), to observe a country wide pharmacy bandh on the day.
However, to express their solidarity with the central organisation, the medicine dealers associating with the AIOCD, will observe a hunger strike on Friday from nine in the morning to five in the evening, said N Anandan, general secretary of TNCDA.
AIOCD has called the strike to urge the union government not to reduce the trade margin in the forthcoming Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO) 2013, and also not to implement foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sector.
Anandan said instructions are getting from AIOCD to observe a bandh in support of the demands it put before the central government. “Since all our demands are based on national issues, we don’t want to conduct a state bandh which will create unexpected difficulties for the common people. We don’t want to disturb them, we are service oriented. Besides, the state government in Tamil Nadu is very supportive towards the pharma traders and we are facing no problem here. On behalf of the government, the drugs control director has requested us to abstain from the strike. So we have decided to conduct a one day hunger strike to show our solidarity with our national organisation,” he told Pharmabiz.
According to him there are over 40,000 pharmacy shops in Tamil Nadu and all of them will open their shops on the day considering the prevailing situation in the state. About five thousand people will take part in the one day hunger strike. The news about abstention from the bandh has been passed on to the AIOCD president, J S Shinde.
The director of drugs control in the state, G Selvaraju said he has requested the trade body to refrain from the strike in view of the welfare of the people.
In Kerala, the bandh call will not have any impact as there is nobody to give instruction to the traders to support the country-wide strike. Because of factional feud, the office of AKCDA is not functioning and the election for new office-bearers has just started on a direction from the court. So, there too, all the medical stores will smoothly function on May 10.
In West Bengal, BCDA, the affiliated body of AIOCD, is also not holding bandh on Friday as the state organisation observed a bandh in last January. "However, our moral support is there with the national bandh," said Tushar Chakravarti, general secretary of the Bengal Chemists & Druggists Association.
The retailers and wholesalers were getting a margin of 16 per cent and eight per cent respectively on sale of scheduled drugs, and on non-scheduled drugs it was 20 per cent and 10 per cent. The new drug policy aims at giving a margin of five per cent on all scheduled and non-scheduled drugs for wholesalers and 15 per cent for retailers. AIOCD wanted the government not to reduce the trade margin in the DPCO, 2013.
Several states in India are staying away from the national strike called by J S Shinde, the national pharma trade leader.
Whereas, Patten Raj, the vice-president of Tamil Nadu Pharmacist Welfare Association said his organisation will not support the national strike called by Shinde because it will disturb the people of the country. He said 12, 000 members of his organisation are having membership with TNCDA.