350 medicines brought under price control, says chemical and fertiliser minister

Chemical and fertiliser minister Ananth Kumar told the Lok Sabha on Thursday that 350 drugs had been brought under price control providing additional benefit of more than Rs 3,000 crore to customers.

Kumar also rejected the charge that cost of some life-saving medicines have sky-rocketed. The government plans to have, in a few years, 3,000 Jan Aushadhi centres where life-saving generic drugs are sold, up from the existing 98, and any member can have 10 such centres in their constituency.

The Centre will also come out with incentives to boost bulk drug industry, Kumar said while noting that 60 per cent of drug import costing Rs 12,000 crore is from China, which he termed as a health security concern.

He added that the government in the last 10 months had brought about 350 more medicines under price control.

"There is a great misconception. Media has written about it. Some members have also said it here that the price of some medicines has skyrocketed. It is wrong."

Citing an example, Kumar said that it is alleged that the cost of a cancer treatment medicine had risen to Rs1.08 lakh for 30 tablets from Rs8,500. "As of today, its price is Rs 8452," he said.