No shortage of Drugs and Medicine in India : Indian Pharma industry

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : Keeping in view the country’s over dependence on import of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), the Government of India ( GoI)  has constituted a Task Force on APIs under the chairmanship of Minister of State for Shipping (I/C) and Chemicals & Fertilisers Mansukh Mandaviya to formulate a roadmap for the enhanced production of APIs in the country.

The 5th Meeting of the Task Force was held on February 17, 2020. Several important issues were discussed regarding policy relaxations to small, medium and large API units and also simplification of the process for environment clearance for production and availability of medicine.

At the meeting, Mandaviya took stock of the availability of drugs and medicine. The industry representatives explained thoroughly to him that they have enough drugs and medicine to deal with any contingency arising out of impact of Coronavirus. They assured that there will be no shortage of any Drug, APIs and Medicine in the coming days in India, according to a PIB release.

During the meeting, the challenges faced by the Pharmaceutical Industry in obtaining Environment Clearance were also discussed. The representative of Ministry of Environment and Forest, Climate Change (MoEF&CC) stated that steps are being taken to expedite Environment Clearances and also mentioned that the Ministry had recently modified the guidelines so that there is no need to obtain separate Environment Clearance, if the production of the Pharma unit is increased by 50%.