The government fixing prices of essential medicines had helped consumers save ₹5,060.3 crore, said Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Mansukh L Mandaviya in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

This is despite the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) catching overcharging cases worth over ₹4,950 crore.

However, despite such massive benefits to the public, it is believed that the government is considering a proposal to disband the NPPA, and delink price control from the list of essential medicines. The National List of Essential Medicine 2015 contains 377 drugs for which prices are controlled.

The NITI Aayog has proposed sweeping changes to the existing drug pricing policy, and has even recommended the dissolution of the NPPA. These proposals, health activists fear would result in increase in drug prices and affect accessibility, especially in a country where citizens spend over 80 per cent of their healthcare expenses from their pockets.

The Aayog has proposed more pricing freedom to companies as the existing policies of price control are being viewed as being detrimental for “ease of doing business”.

The government has long been under intense pressure from pharmaceutical companies to reduce price controls on essential medicines. Since the inception of the NPPA in 1997 it has served 1,467 notices to companies for overcharging on medicines whose prices have been fixed by the government under the Drug Price Control Order, the Minister said replying to a separate query.

Of the total demand of ₹4,958.74 crore by the NPPA, the recovery process for which had been started in August, the body has only been able to recover ₹598.81. The rest ₹3,460.32 crore is stuck in litigation by the companies that are challenging price controls in courts.

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