Cabinet to decide on drug pricing

NEW DELHI JAN 27: In an unprecedented move, the Union cabinet has been roped in to decide on the controversial revision of prices of two of ...

NEW DELHI JAN 27: In an unprecedented move, the Union cabinet has been roped in to decide on the controversial revision of prices of two of the country’s largest selling bulk drugs, rifampicin and ranitidine. Efforts are on to place the two price revision applications for a decision at tomorrow’s meeting of the Union cabinet.

Ordinarily, a revision application is disposed off at the departmental level. But the department of pharmaceuticals is reported to have appealed to the cabinet secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to intervene in what is an unseeming face-off between the chemicals and petrochemicals minister M. Arunchalam and the petrochemicals secretary Deepak Chaterjee over revising the administered prices of rifampicin and ranitidine.

A flurry of meetings last week between the Prime Minister I K Gujral and Arunchalam and between Chatterjee and cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanium apparently failed to break the deadlock. Also involved in the discussions was principal secretary to the PM N N Vora.

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Highly placed sources said that the cabinet secretariat had now proposed that the two revision applications be placed before the Union cabinet for a final decision. Late on Tuesday evening, the department of pharmaceuticals has sought an in-principle permission from Arunachalam to place the issues before the cabinet. It is not known yet whether the ministerial nod will come. Arunachalam is in Chennai and is not likely to attend Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.

Well placed sources in the government had expressed surprised that the department of pharmaceuticals had decided to bypass the minister to go to higher authorities.