Hyderabad: Medicine has become more important today than food. Someone can compromise on his food, but he can not do the same with regard to his medicine.
Taking advantage of this fact, the drug dealers flee the people in the earnings of rupees unethically.
It will be a shock to many that the drug companies follow the dictates of the wholesalers and retailers to set their drug prices. The government plays no role in regulating these prices.
The government’s failure to regulate the drug manufacturing enterprises puts the government and the people in a detrimental situation.
According to a report, the prices of medicines are increased a hundred times from the manufacturing cost until they are handed out to an ordinary man.
The pharmaceutical companies determine the prices of medicines together with the wholesalers and retailers.
Due to the arbitrary fixing of drug prices, both the government and the public suffer losses at Rs 12 – 15 lakh crores per year.
According to the president of the chamber of commerce, Nizamabad PR Somani, the government has succeeded in establishing trading margins on some medicines.
Somani said: ‘As an experiment, the Central Government has set a trade margin on cancer drugs, leading to a surprising price drop of 87 percent. The Chemo injection, previously priced at Rs.1 lakh, has now been reduced to R10,000. This price regulation came into effect on 8 March 2019.
“Similarly, if the government sets trade margins on all other medicines, the public could benefit immensely from it,” Somani said.
Source: The Siasat Daily