September 2: While the July 22 revision of octroi duty levied a 2 per cent tax on medicines, it had also led to an increase in duty on several other commodities like sugar, paper, timber, ghee, leather, tools and instruments and motor vehicle parts. In certain categories the duty had gone up by 100 to 200 per cent. ``The maximum limit of octroi has been increased from four to seven per cent. As it is, the market is going through recession and the consumer is under tremendous pressure due to rising inflation. Any increase in octroi will only add to the problems,'' said Mohan Gurnani, president, Federation of Associations of Maharashtra (FAM). He suggested that the state government could introduce an account-based cess instead of octroi as has been done in Navi Mumbai.But unlike chemists, industry and traders in Maharashtra have been fighting for a complete abolition of octroi since 1987. FAM and other bodies representing industries have been assured time and again that their demands would be accepted.``Chief Minister Manohar Joshi is the ninth chief minister to whom we will approach to resolve the issue,'' Gurnani added.Meanwhile, the Bombay Hospital pharmacy for the second consecutive day today faced problems in controlling crowds. ``We have been trying our best to pacify people, but our pleas that we have run out of medicines have failed to convince them,'' said Lalit Kaushal, Pharmacy Manager, Bombay Hospital. Yesterday night he was forced to seek help from the Azad Maidan police. Today, the front shutter of the pharmacy was closed and medicines were being sold from a small rear entrance. Kaushal himself came out every 10 minutes to tell the crowd that there were no stocks. Reports of emergency centres running out of drugs poured from all over the city, even as the chemists' associations decided to open a few more such control rooms. A few private and public hospitals, which sold medicines on submission of prescriptions, too have decided to limit the supply only to in-housepatients.Representatives of various chemists' associations today met Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) Commissioner Anil Kumar Lakhina and sought his intervention to end the impasse. ``We had a very cordial round of talks with Lakhina and will again meet deputy mayor Gopal Shetty later in the evening, said Dilip Mehta, secretary of the Pharmaceutical Wholesalers' Association.
