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TSDCA yet to establish special price monitoring cell to monitor prices of drugs in the state
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A Raju, Hyderabad
May 25 , 2019
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The Telangana State Drug Control Administration (TSDCA) has not yet
established a dedicated price monitoring cell as was directed by NPPA to
monitor the prices of medicines and medical devices. However, the
officials at the DCA said that drug inspectors have been directed to
monitor the prices of medicines sold by the retail outlets in the state.
“As such we do not have any special cell dedicated only to
monitor the prices of medicines and medical devices. However, as per the
norms issued by the NPPA, we are also bound to inspect the prices of
the medicines as part of our inspection. If there is any specific
complaint pertaining to any medicine or drug sold at exorbitant prices,
definitely we will take action against such pharmacies for violating the
Drug Price Control order (DPCO),” said Pallavi, a regional drug control
officer in Telangana.
As per DPCO order 2013, the National
Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has brought more than 340 essential
medicines under its control and put a pricing cap so as to enable the
common man to avail the medicines at affordable prices. Adding to it
further, about 42 non-scheduled drugs related to cancer have also been
brought under price control.
Even though the NPPA had long back
directed all the state drug control departments to establish a dedicated
price monitoring cell in their respective departments, several states
have failed to set up the dedicated price monitoring cells in their
premises. This clearly shows that in spite of NPPA's orders, the DCAs,
not just in Telangana, in most of the other states have not appointed a
dedicated team of officials nor set up a special monitoring cell to
monitor the prices of medicines.
“Leave alone reduction of
prices of medicines, we have seen a 10 fold rise in prices of some of
the medicines in the recent times. Despite the central government’s
efforts and NPPA's intervention, the DCAs have failed to set up
dedicated price monitoring cell for reasons known to them,” said a
member of Telangana Pharmacy Association.
However, on the other
hand the Telangana DCA officials observed that as the DCA is already
facing lot of problems due to lack of adequate human resources,
establishing a dedicated monitoring cell and allocating special staff
and additional resources for them is becoming difficult.
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