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The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) seems to back on track this year as far recovery of drug overcharging by companies goes. So far in the first five months of this fiscal, the NPPA has already recovered Rs 19.17 crore, which is more than the net amount recovered last fiscal (Rs 14.97 crore).
According to a senior official in the NPPA, after a sluggish phase in the last few years, this year the NPPA aimed to recover an amount of around Rs 35 crore by the end of this fiscal. "Around 51 new cases of overcharging have been registered this year, and we have so far recovered around Rs 19.17 crore from companies who were sent notices. We hope that by the end of this fiscal, we would be able to recover around Rs 35 crore," he informed. Last year the NPPA had recovered Rs 14.97 crore from drug companies.
The NPPA fixes the prices of essential medicines according to the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO), and the drug companies have to approach the NPPA before raising prices of their medicines which fall under this category.
According to the earlier DPCO, the NPPA directly controlled the prices of 74 bulk drugs and of all formulations which contain either one or more of these bulk drugs.
Now, as par the new DPCO 2013, prices of 348 essential formulations have come under pricing control. If any company is found charging the consumers more than the ceiling price fixed by the NPPA, it is sent a notice for recovery of the overcharged amount.
From 1997 till date around 980 cases of overcharging have been registered and notices for recovery sent to respective companies with the total recovery amount including interest of Rs 2957.15 crore, informed the official. He further added that, "So far around Rs 253.54 crore only has been recovered, as around 92.5 per cent cases are under litigation in various courts."
After recovering Rs 51.41 crore in 2008-09 and Rs 35.41 crore in 2009-10, the recovery had gone slow.
During 2010-11, the NPPA had collected Rs 17.26 crore and it could recover only Rs 10.69 crore during 2011-12.
