The Centre is finalising guidelines which will form the basis for selecting locations for the three upcoming bulk drugs parks and four medical devices parks in the country, which are expected to give Indian pharma manufacturing a fillip.

Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers DV Sadananda Gowda, who heads the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), had a meeting with Finance Minister of Punjab Manpreet Singh Badal in New Delhi regarding this. A request letter was handed over to Gowda, for considering setting up of one of the proposed Bulk Drug Park in Bathinda, Punjab.

Badal said Bathinda has good connectivity, water and land availability, and Punjab hosts some of the biggest USFDA-approved pharmaceutical companies and pharma institutes like NIPER, IISER, AIIMS among others.

In order to encourage domestic production of critical Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Key Starting Materials and medical devices, the Union Cabinet on March 12 approved a scheme for development of three bulk drugs and four medical devices parks in which the Centre will extend Grants-in-Aid to States with a maximum limit of ₹1,000 crore per bulk drug park and ₹100 crore per medical device parks.

In addition, the Centre also announced a Production Linked Incentive scheme for promoting domestic manufacturing of APIs, KSMs and medical devices across the country.

These schemes will cost the Centre about ₹13,760 crore. The scheme for promotion of bulk drug parks is expected to result in incremental production of bulk drugs worth about ₹46,400 crore, while scheme for promotion of medical device park is expected to increase production of medical devices to ₹68,437 crore.

These schemes will also result in significant generation of jobs, DoP has said.

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