Six pharma and two medical device parks soon
Indian pharmaceutical sector can get doubled in the next four years to touch Rs.4 lakh crore on the back of key policy initiatives of the government, Union Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Ananth Kumar has said. Stating that the sector is growing at the rate of 14% per annum and has to show additional 1-2% growth every year to reach $55 billion target by 2020, the Minister spoke on various initiatives being taken up by the government for overall development of the pharma and other related industry. To boost indigenous manufacturing, he announced that the government will set up six pharma parks and two medical device parks “very soon” at an investment of about Rs.30,000 crore. The Minister also released the recommendations of the task force committee which focused on development of manufacturing capabilities in each medical vertical in pharmaceutical production and also informed that the Katoch Committee recommendations on bulk drugs will be implemented soon. The task force that covered recommendations with respect to policy support, infrastructure, skill development, duty structure, among others, pressed on enhancing “access to safe and affordable medicines” to address the burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. The Minister also announced measures taken towards human resource capacity building in the sector. Pharmaceutical industry will get another three National Institutes for Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) institutes in Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka for the next financial year, in addition to the already-approved three in Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Maharashtra, he said. In the last one and a half years, there have been more NIPERS, students, infrastructure and more industry participation in them, he said and assured full support to the pharma industry through faster decisions, enabling environment, benign policy initiatives and incentives.
January 14, 2016 | 01:50pm IST
to success.