Regulate drug prices

The forum, which aims to pressurise the government to adopt “pro-poor policies”, would develop a resource base and undertake documentation, he said adding that efforts would also be made to collect relevant studies and information from other parts of country.

“We are basically concerned with the poor people who are going to be adversely affected at the initial stage of the structural adjustment,” Acharya said, pointing out that it was this concern that brought several non-governmental organisations, grassroot workers and academicians of the state to Surat on June 7 and 8 for the workshop to discuss the impact of economic liberalisation.

Talking to Express Newsline on the outcome of two-day workshop on people’s voice on impact of liberalisation, Acharya said that all those NGOs who had been concerned about the government’s `structural adjustment programme’ felt the need to interact.

The new economic policy, he said, had ushered in an era of liberalisation and globalisation which had posed greater challenges for the poor people.To take up the cause of these vulnerable groups and provide a platform for their views, this forum would play an important role through its various activities, Alice Morris of `Unnati’ claimed.