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Planning Commission panel may reduce pharma FDI
10 March 2011: An expert group constituted under the Planning Commission has recommended reducing FDI limit in the pharmaceutical sector to below 49 per cent in order to bring down the cost of medicines.
Currently, the Union Government allows 100 per cent FDI in the sector through automatic route.
The 15-member high level group on universal health coverage, chaired by K Srinath Reddy, in its report has said that the government should “revisit FDI rules to bring down share of foreign players to less than 49%”. The expert group has also recommended reviving drug PSUs in the country by infusing capital and providing autonomous status to them. In order to provide cheap vaccines in the country, the expert group has also recommended revival of old vaccine manufacturing units with additional infusion of capital and new vaccines parks with autonomous status.
In October 2010, the Planning Commission had set up a high-level expert group to develop a blueprint and investment plan for meeting the human resource requirements to achieve ‘health for all’ by 2020.
Source: DNA