The information was revealed by Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Shri Dinesh Trivedi in a written reply to a question raised in Rajya Sabha today.

During the last three years, he said, NPPA has detected 325 number of overcharging cases involving overcharging amount of Rs. 1368.06 crore (upto 31st October 2009).

However, he said, in all those cases, companies have been issued Demand Notice where ever applicable to recover the overcharged amount along with interest. As a result, Rs.78.88 crore have been recovered from various companies.

He showed inability of taking swift action on account of the fact that life saving drugs are not defined in the Drugs (Price Control) Order, 1995. NPPA monitors the availability of the drugs in the country through State Drugs Control Administration. Wherever required, NPPA takes remedial steps for ensuring availability of drugs by impressing upon the manufacturers to rush the stocks to the places of shortage.

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) under Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers has stated that under the provisions of the Drugs (Price Control) Order {DPCO}, 1995 the prices of 74 bulk drugs and the formulation containing any of these scheduled drugs are controlled. NPPA/Government fixes or revises prices of scheduled drugs/formulations as per the provisions of the DPCO, 1995. No one can sell any scheduled drug/formulation at a price higher than the price fixed by NPPA/Government.

The NPPA has fixed/revised the prices of scheduled bulk drugs in 470 cases and 10253 formulations since its inception. Of these, the prices of 18 scheduled bulk drugs and derivatives and 1737 formulation were fixed/revised during the period from 1st April, 2009 to 30th November, 2009.

In respect of drugs -not covered under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 1995 i.e. non-scheduled drugs, manufacturers fix the prices by themselves without seeking the approval of Government/NPPA. Such prices are normally fixed depending on various factors like the cost of bulk drugs used in the formulation, cost of excipients, cost of R&D, cost of utilities/packing material, sales promotion costs, trade margins, quality assurance cost, landed cost of imports etc.

As a part of price monitoring activity, NPPA regularly examines the movement in prices of non-scheduled formulations. The monthly reports of ORGIMS and the information furnished by individual manufacturers are utilized for the purpose of monitoring prices of non-scheduled formulations. Wherever a price increase beyond 10% per annum is noticed, the manufacturer is asked to bring down the price voluntarily failing which, subject to prescribed conditions action is initiated under paragraph 10 (b) of the DPCO, 1995 for fixing the price of the formulation in public interest. This is an ongoing process.

Based on monitoring of prices of non-scheduled formulation, NPPA has fixed prices in case of 27 formulation packs under para 10 (b) of the DPCO, 1995 and companies have reduced price voluntarily in case of 64 formulation packs. Thus in all, prices of 91 packs of non-scheduled drugs have got reduced as a result of the intervention of NPPA.#