Govt invites entries for NPPA logo

New Delhi : The Department of Pharmaceuticals plans to differentiate drugs under price control and make it easier for patients to identify them by printing a logo of price regulator NPPA on packages.

The department is seeking designs of logo for National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) through a public contest.

"The basic idea is that there should be a symbol displayed on scheduled medicines, so that even an illiterate consumer can identify that the medicine is under price control," a senior government official said.

The rationale behind the move is that the consumers understand if a medicine has the logo then its price is fixed and therefore he or she can't be overcharged, the official added.

DoP is looking for a logo of NPPA which would carry a tag 'Medicine under price control/UPC' that can be used on medicine strips, labels and on medicine bottles.

The department is offering a prize money of Rs 30,000 to the winner of the logo contest and the last date for submission of entry is July 24. Already nearly 100 submissions have been made.

NPPA fixes ceiling prices of scheduled medicines included in Schedule-I of the DPCO, 2013. Besides, it also monitors the movement of prices of non-scheduled medicines such that the increase is not more than 10 per cent of MRP of the preceding 12 months.