In order to improve the availability of essential medicines at affordable price across the country, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on Thursday initiated an online complaint system whereby the drug regulator, having the required information (about a medicine), can initiate redressal process without any time loss.
?The format available on NPPA?s website is designed to send complaints on issues relating to overcharging, counterfeit drugs, non-availability or shortage of any medicine. Having filled the required inputs in the format (available at the website of NPPA) anybody can send the complaint to us and the authority would take action within 30 days,? NPPA chairman Ashok Kumar said.
The regulator has also announced a cash prize of Rs 1,000 for each complaint that is found correct. ?The measure is likely to bring us more complaints thereby strengthening our monitoring process even in remote places,? Kumar added.
NPPA, in the last three years, has initiated action against various drug manufacturers for overcharging. Several cases that are pending before various courts related to overcharging of drugs involving around Rs 1,526 crore.
Incidentally, over 50% cases involving about Rs 830 crore were initiated against several drug companies in the last three years only.
Besides augmenting its monitoring process, the regulator will conduct a nation-wide census on drug firms for providing insights to the government for future policy making and planning.
The first pharmaceutical industry census (FPCI) intends to generate pharma map of the country after gathering information on various aspects including investments, pricing and product specifications, as well as compliance to good manufacturing practices by drug makers.
The proposed census will cover over 10,000 drug-manufacturing units in the country through a structured questionnaire so as to provide insights for policy making and planning. The census will be carried out in association with 4th All India Census of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. ?FPCI would commence during the current fiscal and would be concluded during the next fiscal,? chemicals and fertilisers minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who was presiding over an NPPA function, said.
The minister said the census would create a database regarding turnover of pharmaceutical manufacturing units in the country by class of industry, state-wise and district wise and also by type of units (formulation and bulk among others).
When asked about the status on the long awaited drug policy, which is yet to get a clearance from a group of ministers (GoM) headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, Paswan said he has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a speedy resolution of the matter.