Reduced price of meds should be implemented

Visakhapatnam: Consumer Organisations Federation (COF) state president Kandregula Venkata Ramana has appealed for immediate implementation of the directives issued by the Central government reducing the prices of 651 regular medicines.

Speaking to the media here on Thursday, he stated that the orders came into effect from April 1 but it is yet to be implemented in Andhra Pradesh. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has imposed a ceiling on the prices of 651 medicines, which will reduce the prices by 6.73 percent across the country, he added.

About Rs 3,500 crore financial burden can be reduced by reducing the price of these medicines, he said.

However, Venkata Ramana objected that even though the prices have come down, the shopkeepers are currently exploiting the consumers by selling at the premium prices as before. He demanded that the drug manufacturers should declare the price list of medicines through the Integrated Pharmaceutical Database Management System (IPDMS).

Venkata Ramana mentioned in the petition to the health department that every retailer and dealer should display the drug prices in the business premises visible to the consumers.