BHUBANESWAR: The State Government is in the process of formulating a separate policy for pharmaceutical sector. The policy provisions have been prepared in consultation with directorate of drugs control and industry representatives.
An official of the Industry Department said since the pharmaceutical sector has specific fiscal and non-fiscal support requirements which are not covered under the new Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR)-2015, a separate policy for the sector should be put in place.
As decision has been taken that the State would promote cluster-approach for development of pharma sector, the policy would include dedicated section and guidelines for development of pharmaceutical cluster or park.
The clusters could be developed by Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) or private developers. As per the draft policy, IDCO may consider equity participation in clusters even if these are developed by private players.
The existing provision in IPR-2015 for support to private industrial estates will be extended to such clusters with additional support of `two crore per cluster for setting up environmental infrastructure facilities like Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) in view of specific requirement of the sector.
It has been decided that the suggested policy provisions for promoting individual units should be kept as well, in case there is an interest among companies to set up units outside the dedicated cluster.
Since the State presently has surplus capacity of seats in the bachelor’s programme for pharmacy, there is no need to have a specific provision for setting up dedicated institution to run educational courses, the official said.
He, however, added that the Government would continue to pursue the proposal of setting up a National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) in the State with the support of Centre.
In April, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had offered logistic support to the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers for the purpose.
Citing that a Bio-Technology park over an area of 64 acre has been developed in Bhubaneswar and a pharma park along with a medical device park is coming up, Naveen in a letter to Union Minister Ananth Kumar had stated that a NIPER in Odisha would be in fitness of the overall scheme of development of pharmaceutical sector in this region.