The government on Friday approved 14 projects belonging to two different categories for manufacturing active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), drug intermediaries (DI) and key starting materials (KSMs) under a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme meant for making the country self-reliant in critical bulk drugs production.

While announcing the scheme last year, the government has divided the ₹6,940-crore PLI scheme into four different segments, such as key fermentation-based KSMs/DIs, niche fermentation-based KSMs/DIs/APIs, key chemical synthesis based KSMs/DIs and other chemical synthesis based KSMs/DIs/APIs.

In total, the government received 215 applications for 36 products spread across the four target segments The incentives worth ₹6,940 crore will be given over nine years beginning with the current financial year.

As many as five projects belonging to the first target segment with a committed investment of ₹3,761 crore were already cleared on January 22 by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers.

The current lot is related to category 2 and 3 technologies. The projects belonging to the fourth segment are expected to be announced in the next few days, an official statement said. Under segment 2, eight projects with a total committed investment of over ₹422 crore have been selected. Prominent among them are a ₹198.36 crore project from M/s MacleodsPharmaceuticals Limited to produce antibiotic drug Rifampicin as well as ₹57 crore project from M/s Sudarshan Pharma Industries Limited to make Vitamin B1.

In Segment 3, a total of six projects with a committed investment of ₹439.74 crore have been approved. Among them is a project by Sadhana Nitro Chem Limited to manufacture para amino phenol at an investment of ₹197.27 crore, the statement said.

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