March 29, 2024 04:47 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
PM Modi has mastered art of manipulating democracy, hurting Constitution: Mallikarjun Kharge | Mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari dies of cardiac arrest at 63 | NIA arrests key conspirator in Bengaluru cafe blast case | Actor Govinda returns to politics after 14 years of 'vanvas', joins Eknath Shinde camp | 'To browbeat and bully others is vintage Congress culture': PM posts after 600 lawyers write to CJI

Ananth Kumar stresses upon need for affordable medicines

India Blooms News Service | | 29 Aug 2016, 05:05 pm
New Delhi, Aug 29 (IBNS): Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar has appealed to the industry leaders, State Governments, other departments and civil society in pooling efforts to make available medicines at affordable prices to the common man.

Speaking at a function in New Delhi on the occasion of NPPA Foundation Day on Monday, he said that in the last two and a half years, almost 900 formulations have been brought under the price control, providing a saving of about 5000 crores to the consumers.

He said that National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has already come out with ceiling price of 368 new drugs within 6 months of the issue of New National List of Essential Medicines-2015.

The Minister launched a mobile App. developed by NPPA which shows the MRP fixed by NPPA for various scheduled drugs on real time basis.

Ananth Kumar said that application will be called “Pharma Sahi Daam”.

He also unveiled the logo of NPPA which will be displayed on packing of all scheduled medicines.

The Minister said that amendments will be made soon to empower NPPA in gathering data and taking appropriate decisions for the drugs included in the NLEM but market data is not available.

Ananth Kumar said that he is pursuing the case for making an independent Ministry for Pharmaceuticals so that all decisions regarding the industry could be taken under a single roof.

The Minister advocated a ‘3A’ approach to achieve health security for every citizen of India.

He stressed that Universal Healthcare can be achieved only by ensuring the Availability, Affordability and Accessibility (3A) of medicines to the common man.

Ananth Kumar highlighted the need of transparent and efficient discovery of drug prices and regulation of the pharma sector.

Ananth Kumar said that the pharmaceutical industry has risen to almost US$37 billion and Indian medicines are being exported to over 200 countries. Pharmaceutical is a sunrise industry and the Government is keen to provide support to it through various means like pharmaceutical parks, medical devices parks, pharmaceutical clusters and promotion of innovation through Atal Innovation Scheme.

Under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister  Narendra Modi, the Minister said that two pronged strategy is being adopted to provide cheap medicines to the common man- one is through regulating the prices by NPPA and another is opening of PM Jan Aushadhi Stores.

He said that within one year, 3000 PM Jan Aushadhi Stores will be opened in the country covering all districts and tehsils.

Ananth Kumar said that most of the medicines in Jan Aushadhi Stores cost 30 to 40 per cent as compared to the market cost and no medicine in Jan Aushadhi Store is more than 50 per cent of the market cost.

 

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.