New Drug Order dated 15 May 13 for essential medicines

India on 15^th May 2013 notified Drug Price Control Order 2013 that will bring down prices of essential medicines, increase the number of drugs under price control. The order is effective from 31 May 13. 

The government will regulate the rates of 652 medicines, a substantial increase over the 74 bulk drugs and their formulations that were previously under price control.

The new order authorises the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to regulate prices of essential medicines as listed in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2011. -

The current method of fixing prices on a cost-plus basis will be replaced by market price-linked cap for each drug.

Prices would be capped by taking the weighted average price of all brands having at least 1% or more market share (by volume)

It has clarified that players selling below the price caps cannot raise prices.

The new pricing policy seeks to incentivise domestic R&D by allowing locally discovered and developed drugs to skip price control for five years.

A new drug developed using indigenous R&D and granted patent under Indian law can seek exemption from price control from the date it starts commercial production in the country.

Second, if a pharma company discovers a new process to make an existing drug and gets a patent for it under Indian law, it can apply for a five-year relaxation from price regulation. This privilege would kick in for the drugmaker from the time it starts manufacturing the drug for the domestic market.

Drug makers will have to maintain records relating to the sales of APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) and bulk drugs, manufactured or imported.

The order dated 15^th May 13 can be downloaded from:- 

http://pharmaceuticals.gov.in/DPCO2013.pdf

Hank Yarn Obligation

Hank yarn obligation in Textile Sector

The hank yarn obligation scheme was designed to provide hank yarn to handloom weavers at a reasonable price and in a timely way. The scheme makes it compulsory for yarn spinners to earmark certain per cent of their production for handloom weavers. Spinners are typically less keen to reel cone yarn into hank yarn as the process adds to their costs, yarn in that form garners a lower price in the market and it services a diminishing market. Additionally, as many spinners also operate powerlooms, they favour cone yarn to supply their own production. Uneconomical and out of step with the current large-scale, mass production of cone yarn, hank yarn production was falling and as a result handloom weavers were increasingly faced with a decreasing supply of their primary input.

Under the first hank yarn reservation scheme, initiated in 1993, private spinners were ordered to produce half of their yarn in hank form, the type of yarn required by handloom weavers. All remaining output could be produced in cone form for sale to textile mills. The goal of the first hank yarn obligation was thus to improve the availability hank yarn at a reasonable price for handloom weavers.

In 2000, the scheme was altered in a way which unfortunately allowed spinners to scuttle their obligations. Alterations gave spinners the leeway to fulfill their obligations through 1) filling the deficit by transferring the obligation on to other spinning mills or 2) by carrying forward the deficit to the following year.

Initiatives like this one and the CENVAT removal effectively subsidize handloom weavers by making yarn cheaper. The production of hank yarn is uneconomical, wasteful, very much labour oriented and impacting adversely on the economic viability of the spinning units. Though supply of yarn to the vulnerable handloom sector is no doubt necessary but it should not be done at the cost of the spinning sector, more so in the context of the on going integration of world textile market.

The conversion of cone yarn to hank yarn is highly labour intensive and mills have to incur an additional cost of about Rs. 2 to Rs. 10/kg. of yarn depending on the counts spun as compared to cone yarn.

.A Hank of Yarn Looks like above. It is used in Traditional Hand-loom Machines as compared to cone yarn in moderen Power Loom Machines. Cone yarn looks like following:-

 

Satutory Bodies for Education seats

Various Educational Statutory Bodies

Statutory Body	Purview
All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)	Education standard for Engineering, Technology, Architecture, Town Planning, Management, Pharmacy, Applied Arts and Crafts, Hotel Management and Catering Technology etc
Bar Council of India (BCI)	Standards of legal education
Central Council of Homeopathy (CCH)	Homeopathic medicine qualifications. Any university or medical institutions that desires to grant a medical qualification in homeopathy is required to apply to the Council.
Central Council for Indian Medicine (CCIM)	Education in Indian Systems of Medicine viz. Ayurved, Siddha, Unani Tibb.
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)	Conduct annual examinations at the end of Class X and XII
Central Hindi Directorate	Hindi language.
Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL)	study of English and Foreign Languages and their literatures, organisation of research, training of teachers
Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET)	To promote Educational Technology especially mass media singly or in combinations (multimedia packages) to extend educational opportunities and improve quality of educational processes at the school level.
Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL)	development of Indian Languages
Central Tibetan Schools Administration (CTSA)	Education of Tibetan children.
Commission of Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT)	To evolve a uniform terminology for Hindi and other modern Indian languages and to produce university-level text books, supplementary reading material and reference literature in all disciplines of knowledge, except Law
Council of Architecture (COA)	Registration of Architects, standards of education, recognized qualifications and standards of practice to be complied with by the practicing architects.
Dentists Council of India (DCI)	Dental Education
Distance education Council (DEC)	for the promotion of the Open University and distance education systems, determination of standards of teaching, evaluation & research in such systems
Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)	promote research in social sciences in the country
Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR)	Fellowships to scholars;
Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS)	Academic research, particularly in selected subjects in the Humanities, Indian Culture, Religion, Social and Natural Sciences
Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR)	Recognition for historical research  and interpretation of history
Medical Council of India (MCI)	Establishing and maintaining high standards of medical education and recognition of medical qualifications in India.
National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE)	Planned and coordinated development of the teacher education system
Pharmacy Council of India (PCI)	Pharmacy educationist regulatory body
Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI)	Any one delivering services to people with disability