No permission given to hike drug prices beyond limits: Govt

New Delhi : Government has not given nod to any pharma firm to increase prices of drugs beyond permissible limits, Parliament was informed.

"Few companies have given representations for increasing prices of medicines beyond permissible limits mentioning various reasons like increase in cost, tax, foreign exchange rates etc. However, no company has been given permission to increase the prices so far," Minister of Chemicals & Fertilisers and Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar said in a reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

The government has brought down the prices of 404 medicines under NLEM 2015 (revised schedule-I) of the Drug Price Control Order 2013, he added.

Earlier, "the government has reduced the ceiling prices of 530 medicines as on 2/3/2016 under NLEM 2011 of DPCO 2013 (original schedule-I) on the basis of negative wholesale price index (WPI)", Kumar said.

Schedule I of DPCO 2013 has the national list of essential medicines.