Govt released Rs 13K-crore fund to boost Mass Medicine production
The Union government on Saturday sactioned a plan consisting of 4 schemes with a total disbursement of Rs 13,760 crore to increase the domestic manufacturing of mass medications, medical devices as well as exports.
Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers told reporters that Rs 9,940 crore and Rs 3,820 crore is released for mass drugs and medical devices respectively in the Union Cabinet meeting chaired by PM Narendra Modi.
He added, “the cabinet has also sanctioned Rs 3,000 crore for the next 5 years to promote mass medicine parks and 3 such parks are funded for basic infrastructure facilities.
Mandaviya said, “Rs 6,940 crore has been sanctioned for the PLI scheme (Production Linked Incentive) for promoting domestic manufacturing of APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients), KSM (key starting material), and medicine intermediates and the PLI scheme will lead to expected incremental sales of Rs 46,400 crore and also employment generation over 8 years. This plan is to establish 3 huge mass medicine parks in collaboration with states. The center will grant a maximum of Rs 1,000 crore per park to states. Monetary incentives will be provided
to manufacturers of 53 identified mass medicines on incremental sales for a period of 6 years over the base year (2019-2020). 27 of these medicines are chemical synthesis-based mass medications, and 26 are fermentation-based mass medicine production. The rate of incentive will be 20% (of incremental sales worth) for fermentation-based mass medications and 10% for chemical synthesis-based medications.Mandaviya said, “a maximum grant-in-aid of Rs 100 crore per park to states will be supplied in the scheme for promotion of medical device parks, and it will have economic implications of Rs 400 crore”.
He added, “With economic implications of Rs 3,420 crore, the PLI scheme is for promoting domestic manufacturing of medical devices”. The expense to be incurred for the plans on the medical devices’ promotion will be for the following 5 years.
Basic infrastructure facilities would be created at 4 parks, which is anticipated to reduce manufacturing prices under the sub-scheme for the promotion of medical device parks.
He stated, “It will certainly lead to expected incremental production of Rs 68,437 crore over 5 years,” and the plans have the potential to create employment of 33,750 jobs over 5 years and also minimize the import of target sectors of medical devices.
The industry said the instant focus needs to be on making use of existing abilities, however, the government is getting ready to decrease import reliance for pharmaceutical raw material and medical devices.
Yogin Majmudar, bulk drug committee of the Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association (IDMA) and a mass drug unit owner said in the scheme, “the support to be extended to brownfield units was not clear and there can only be an instant rise in manufacturing from these units, parks are a long term remedy with a horizon of a minimum of 3 years.
Majmudar claimed, around 40% of installed capacity is predicted to be lying still.
He said, “The environment regulations have to be modified to obtain faster approvals, the focus should have been on effluent quality as well as quantity and not on the product portfolio of an API unit, and in the announcement, there was no mention of a significant barrier to fast manufacturing.”
Rajiv Nath, a forum coordinator of Association of Indian Manufacturers of Medical Devices, stated, “We are more confident that these plans announced would certainly aid boost local manufacturing as well as will certainly accelerate medical devices manufacturing as a ‘Make in India’ enabler, make high-quality healthcare accessible as well as inexpensive for common population, enable placing India among the top five medical devices manufacturing centers worldwide and aid end the 80-90% import dependence forced upon us and also an ever raising import bill of over Rs 38,837 crore”.
