Punjab, Haryana, Himachal in fray for drug park

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 16

All northern states, except J&K, will compete with each other besides southern and western states for a bulk drug park to reduce the country’s dependence on China. The last date to apply for the same was October 15.

The Centre has framed an area scoring criteria for the selection of states for setting up the bulk drug parks. The government proposes to develop three bulk drug parks through grant-in-aid to states with a cap of Rs 1,000 crore per park with 70% financial assistance.

The Punjab Government has proposed to set up the park in Bathinda. Haryana proposes to set up the park in Hisar. Himachal Pradesh had earlier decided to send a proposal to the Centre to set up the bulk drug park in Una district.

The Indian pharmaceutical industry is the third largest in the world by volume. However, India is significantly dependent on import of basic raw materials viz. bulk drugs that are used to produce medicines. In some specific bulk drugs, the import dependence is 80 to 100%.

Besides existing incentives, the industry expects more sops to attract investment and become self-reliant. “To make the scheme a success, we have appealed to the government to do away with minimum investment cap on availing production-linked incentive scheme for greenfield projects for bulk drugs and extend it to brownfield plants as well,” said Dr Dinesh Dua, whole-time director, Nectar Lifesciences, and chairman, Pharmexcil.

The Centre is likely to announce the name of selected states by December.

States such as Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh have also applied for medical devices park.