Government working on revising National List of Essential Medicines

NEW DELHI: The government is working on revising the National List of Essential Medicines in order to bring more drugs under the price control, Parliament was informed today.

"The Ministry of Health and family Welfare, has constituted a Core Committee of Experts to review and recommend the revision of National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2011 in the context of contemporary knowledge of use of therapeutic products," Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

He was replying to a query on what steps have been taken by the government to expand the list of NLEM and provide them to the poor at affordable price.

Kumar further said that the committee has held wide consultations with stakeholders and is likely to come out with its recommendations on the revised NLEM soon.

"The revised NLEM would form the basis of number of medicines which would come under price control," Kumar said.

National Pharmaceutical Pricing authority (NPPA) has already fixed the ceiling prices in respect of 521 medicines till date out of 680 medicines (628 net medicines) included in the first schedule of DPCO, 2013..., he added.

The Department of Pharmaceuticals has launched a countrywide Jan Aushadhi campaign for ensuring greater availability of medicines at affordable prices to all, he added.