The Hindu Business Line : Uniform retail drug prices across country by year-end: Paswan

THE Government has initiated steps to ensure that the maximum retail price (MRP) of drugs, as printed on the packets, are "inclusive of all taxes" as against the present practice of "local taxes extra." This would eventually lead to uniform drug prices all over the country.

This was stated by the Minister for Chemicals, Fertilisers and Steel, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, at the concluding session of the Economic Editors' Conference here on Friday.

He said the proposal would be implemented before year-end and added this would not lead to any significant increases in drug prices.

He also said that to ensure uniform MRP, VAT would come handy in those States that had already implemented this new tax system and in those States which were yet to implement VAT, existing taxes such as sales tax, Octroi and mandi tax would be merged for the purpose.

Prepared for bird-flu: He also said the country was prepared to combat avian influenza, popularly known as bird flu, though it had not yet affected India. He said orders for 1 lakh doses of this drug had been placed with Ross, the company which holds the patent for this drug, and the supply was expected in around a month's time.

Simultaneously, four domestic companies, namely Ranbaxy, Hetro, Glaxo and Cipla, had said that they would be able to make this drug and the Government was planning to set up a stock of 10 million doses inventory to fight against any unforeseen situations in the future.

The Minister also said a high-level committee comprising the secretaries of Health, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fertilisers and Chemicals, had been constituted to prepare a national strategy to combat the onslaught of this disease.

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