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Meera Mohanty

New Delhi June 13 Nine years since it last fixed the price for any non-scheduled drug, the National Pharma Pricing Authority (NPPA) is exercising its powers under Para 10 (B) of the Drug (Price Control) Order, 1995 again.

The authority is believed to have identified about 10 non-scheduled drugs from about the same number of companies whose prices it has decided to fix. Notifications are expected to be put up on the authority's website on Wednesday.

NPPA, which otherwise only monitors annual changes in pricing of non-scheduled drugs, is calling on the Para 10 B provision that empowers it to fix the rate of drugs outside of the current essential list of 74 drugs whose prices are controlled by the Government.

The last time the Government and its regulatory body intervened was in 1998 when it fixed the prices for three commonly used IV fluids, making them cheaper by about 40 per cent.

Representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, which has been opposed to the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers' plans to extend price control from the current 74 drugs to a list of 354 essential medicines, believe the move would further vitiate the relations between the Ministry and the pharmaceutical industry. A Group of Ministers is currently reviewing the price control issue in the Pharma Policy 2006, but is yet to meet a second time.

Earlier this year the Ministry had returned the NPPA's powers withdrawn by the previous government to fix the price for any drug, scheduled or non- scheduled, in public interest. In March the NPPA also decided to revise the allowed increase in prices from 20 per cent annually to 10 per cent a year for non- scheduled formulations.

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