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In order to effectively detect drug ceiling price violations, Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be providing an office space for a monitoring cell planned by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) in the state.
NPPA had discussed and proposed the plan with the state drug regulator to set up a dedicated administrative cell within its office last year. While the expenditure related to manpower, amenities and other infrastructural cost will be borne by the Centre, state government will have to provide the space for setting up the office within the state drug regulatory office, as per the plan.
As per the provisions of the law, NPPA will give us certain monetary benefits to set up the cell and is in the process of allocating a budget on the same, said a senior FDA official.
Government has earmarked an amount of Rs. 67 lakh for all category A states in the country of which Rs. 7 lakh has been earmarked for infrastructure and equipment, Rs. 19 lakh for manpower, Rs. 24 lakh for training, Rs. 12 lakh for data collection and sampling and Rs. 5 lakh as contingency fund.
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Himanchal Pradesh etc fall under the category of A states.
NPPA held a meeting with all the state drug controllers last year in Delhi to set up price monitoring cells in all the states across the country. With the implementation of the plan, violations reported will be dealt timely with the help of the state NPPA cells in case they find any contravention to the provisions of Drug Price Control Order (DPCO-2013).
Through the price monitoring cells, NPPA will closely work with the state drug regulators to find out any discrepancies that affect the consumers. The officials heading the cell will report their findings to the NPPA directly in case they find any pharma company violating the law by selling the drugs above the ceiling price.
Under the proposed scheme, the cell is to be headed by one person along with a team of NPPA officials whose strength will vary as per the size of the pharma industry in the respective states. NPPA has categorised the states based on three categories, i.e. based on maximum, minimum and least number of pharma cos in the state for better division of work.
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