Private cos to be allowed to make opium-based drugs

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New Delhi, July 28: The finance ministry has proposed to allow private pharma companies to process opium and manufacture opium-based drugs like morphine, codeine, thebaine, noscapine etc for exports.

The ministry has issued a draft notification to this effect, seeking changes in the narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances (NDPS) rules and schedules.

Issuance of licences to private sector would be done in transparent manner, officials said.

As FE had reported earlier, the decision would bring to an end the government’s over 200-years’ monopoly over processing of raw opium and help step up export of these drug intermediates.

Allowing private players in the sector is also expected to facilitate modern-technology manufacturing of codeine phosphate, a major ingredient in cough preparations. Currently, codeine phosphate is imported.

The country exported 500 tonne of raw opium to countries such as Australia and France in 2005-06, and realised $72 a kg, that is, a total of $36 million.

Export of processed opium and its derivatives could multiply the export realisations, sources said.

Currently, India is the only country in the world with the legal mandate (under the Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Bureau) to export raw opium and produce morphine through conventional processing.

Official sources said opium processing cost in India — through the conventional route — is much higher than the economically gainful concentrate of poppy straw (CPS) route adopted by Australia and France.

As a result, the country is finding it increasingly difficult to realise economic prices for raw opium. CPS, obtained from chemical processing of poppy straw, is also an intermediate for production of a series of analgesics.

The decisions have been taken as per the recommendations of an expert inter- ministerial committee. The ministry is also considering corporatisation of the two public sector opium processing units at Gazipur in UP and Neemuch in MP, with a view to equip them for technology upgrade.

The government has also proposed to enable patients to possess psychotropic substances in excess of hundred dosage units at a time if specifically prescribed by a registered medical practitioner.

Besides, it proposed to enable the chief controller of factories to supply samples of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances to testing laboratories, drug law enforcement agencies and training institutions.