Money9 Edit | Covid kit price control key to mitigation
Ramping up medical infrastructure is going to take its own time. But to bring immediate relief for pricing of Covid essentials, the union government must announce a transparent price list
The pandemic has caused unprecedented loss to life and livelihood. The extent of the damage can be gauged from distress sale of long nurtured high yield financial instruments like Fixed Deposits, PPF and employee advance against EPF corpus. Jobless are far more vulnerable.
Making it grim is the inability of the government to cap prices of Covid kit (detection tests, scans, thermometer, oximeter and oxygen cylinders, concentrators and life-saving drugs like Remdesivir). With third wave lurking around the corner, an exhaustive Covid price kit inclusive of vaccines is an imperative.
There has been a strong demand of the government to explain as to why the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 and Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 are not being invoked for regulating prices of life saving drugs essential for treatment of Covid-19.
The Delhi High Court last week directed the Delhi government to issue a fresh order for capping the charges being levied by private hospitals and nursing homes for treatment of Covid patients. The Delhi government had issued a circular capping the prices for treatment of Covid-19 patients in private hospitals. But this is no longer in operation now.
The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), an attached office of the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers as an independent Regulator for pricing of drugs and to ensure availability and accessibility of medicines at affordable prices, has obviously failed to anticipate either the demand for Covid life-saving drugs or stipulate their pricing in time. Even as it announced the price for such drugs, lack of availability gave a fillip to black marketing and profiteering.
The state woke up too late to its responsibility to curb black marketing even as the demand supply mismatch was staring us all in our face. Even thermometers were sold in black in some parts of rural India.
The damage has been done. It is time to draw key lessons. Ramping up medical infrastructure is going to take its own time. But to bring immediate relief for pricing of Covid essentials, the union government must announce a transparent price list and the law enforcement agencies must enforce the order leaving no room for black marketers.
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