Pharmaceutical manufacturing units on verge of closure
Faced with lack of marketing support from the State Government, the pharmaceutical manufacturing units of the State are on verge of closure.
Pharma MSMEs which modernised their units under cluster development programmes have not received any order from Government for last six months due to non-cooperation of the Health and Family Welfare Department. The State Government declared Cuttack and Bhubaneswar as pharma cluster and assured the pharma units of necessary marketing support.
About 20 pharma manufacturing companies modernised their units by borrowing heavily from banks.
When pharmaceutical manufacturers are in process of modernising their units, Health and Family Welfare Department decided to procure drugs and medical consumables through open tender by doing away with the rate contract system, said president of Utkal Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association Ashok Patnaik.
Following protest from the association, a high level meeting under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik decided to procure 20 drugs and medical consumables through rate contract system.
The Department of MSME issued a notification on February 25 and declared Director of the Export Promotion and Marketing (EPM) as the chairman of the drugs committee. Though the Director convened the meeting of the drugs committee thrice to finalise the rate of 16 drugs, the officers of the Health department did not attend it, Patnaik said.
The Chief Minister approved Health Department proposal for reconstitution of drugs committee on May 20 and MSME Secretary was made chairman of the committee. The order was communicated to Health department on July 22.
But department has not intimated it to MSME Department for issuing notification even after a month, Patnaik rued. The association has sought the intervention of Chief Minister for immediate implementation of Government decision.
