Praja Arogya Vedika (PAV) has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to order opening of the public sector pharma units and public sector vaccine companies for the production of medicines and vaccines for COVID-19 and other essential life-saving essential drugs under ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’ scheme.In a letter to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, PAV general secretary T. Kameswara Rao and president M.V. Ramanaiah referred to the statements of health experts that the COVID-19 virus would undergo many more mutations and variants and affect the lives of people. They underlined the need for mass production of drugs and vaccines and that could be done only when the public sector pharma companies were restarted.The life-saving patented drugs must be manufactured by issuing compulsory licence as it is a health emergency and all the medicines should be made available to the common man at a cheaper price, they said..They sought the intervention of the Prime Minister in this regard as the number of COVID-19 patients was rising rapidly and early action was needed.