Taking steps to discourage import of bulk drugs: Government

New Delhi : Government is taking various policy initiatives, including withdrawal of customs duty exemption, to discourage import of bulk drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) into the country.

"Recently the government has withdrawn exemption of custom duty on certain categories of bulk drugs/APIs to provide level playing field to the domestic manufacturers," Minister of State for Chemicals Mansukh L Mandaviya said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Further, the government is clearing bottlenecks like environment clearance which the manufacturers are facing in order to give boost to domestic manufacturing of bulk drugs, he added.

Currently, India is dependent on imports of bulk drugs/ APIs on China for producing certain essential medicines.

As India is a signatory to the WTO and TRIPs agreements, the import restrictions have been removed and imports made on economic considerations have slowly resulted in the present dependence, Mandaviya said.