Kerala Medical and Sales Representatives Association (KMSRA)(CITU) has opined that the new price control policy to regulate the prices of medicines was a big gimmick.
KMSRA president Kallara Madhu and general secretary Paul Varghese said the drug manufacturing companies were not fixing the prices on the basis of its actual cost of production. The taxation is based on the Maximum Retail price(MRP) making the price control exercise a gimmick. They said multinational pharmaceutical companies which had taken over most of the country’s pharma companies are literally plundering the people by raising the medicine prices by ten times.
They said while 26 of the multinational companies literally took over the country’s pharma giants they was really aiming to stop Indian companies from exporting medicines at a cheaper rate to the global market from the year 2015 when the patent of products of several companies will expire.
Moreover, these MNCs could gain control over India’s Rs 60,000 crore drug manufacturing industry. They said the multinationals introduced over 700 drugs at exhorbitant prices. When the government listed several medicines to be sold at controlled prices, these companies stopped their production and introduced new medicines which were priced heavily. They pointed out that when the BJP Government allowed 100 percent FDI the main claim was that it would attract greenfield ivestsments. However, no new manufacturing unit have come up. Instead, 26 prominent Indian companies have been taken over by multinationals.
They pointed out that now the Centre had been forced to state that the FDI should be limited to 49 percent. Demanding urgent intervention in to these issues by the Centre and the state governments, KMSRA is observing a fast from December 2 to 6 in front of the Secretariat.