Govt plans to set up drug price monitoring cells in India

The government is planning to set up drug price monitoring cells across the country to keep a close watch on price movements, collections, monitoring of availability of drugs, etc. A proposal has been received by the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers from National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) in which NPPA has proposed for revision/modification of the existing plan scheme of consumer awareness and publicity through print, electronic and other media, said Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Minister of State (MOS) for the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers, in the Lok Sabha on February 24, 2015.
 
The proposal, inter-alia, has a component for setting up consumer awareness, price monitoring and resource units at the states/union territories with the objective of forging better linkages with the state drug controllers. “The units are expected to provide necessary technical assistance to the state drug controllers and NPPA towards monitoring the notified prices of medicines, price movement of scheduled/non-scheduled medicines, collection and compilation of market based data of scheduled/non-scheduled medicines, conducting training, seminars and workshops at the state and district levels for consumer awareness and publicity covering aspects relating to availability of scheduled and non-scheduled medicines at reasonable prices, care to be taken while purchasing the medicines from the chemists / retailers, availability of alternative cheaper medicines, role and function of NPPA, etc,” said Ahir.
 
Most of the state drug controllers have in-principle supported the proposal for setting up the units at the states/UTs level. The proposal is yet to be placed before the appropriate committee for approval.