Addressing the media at the economic editors' conference, Prabhu said that price controls had been imposed several years ago with certain considerations in mind. He added that the ministry was presently evaluating whether such considerations still held merit and if they did not steps would be taken to bring about changes. "As long as we are sure that the interests of the consumers would not be hampered, we will take all steps to help the domestic industry."

The minister said that a strategy was being planned to ensure that pharmaceutical companies could compete in WTO and Intellectual Property Rights regime which would come into force from 2000. "We will go through the detailed reports of the committees on pricing and R&D and help the taskforce on pharmaceuticals to formulate relevant recommendations."

Prabhu said the pharmaceutical industry could be competitive only if thrust was provided on R&D. "We will come up with suitable incentives to encourage units to invest in R&D." Policies would also be made to ensure that the small pharmaceutical units could also reap the benefits of research, Prabhu added.

Focussing on the problems faced by the fertiliser sector, Prabhu said that one big constraint which the industry faced was the absence of an appropriate feed-stock policy. "We cannot discuss the issue of pricing without taking into account the availability of feedstock at competitive prices."

Prabhu said that to ensure availability of suitably priced feedstock to the industry, the ministry was drafting a feedstock policy simultaneously with a long term fertiliser policy. He said that plan of the phased decontrol of the fertiliser sector would also be announced soon. The minister said that the government was also in the process of articulating views on how best it could deal with sick units. "Our prime concern would be the economic feasibility of the projects."