PHARMA LITERATI

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the sale of surplus land of ailing state-owned pharma companies Indian Drugs & Pharmaceuticals Limited ( IDPL ), Rajasthan Drugs & Pharmaceuticals Limited ( RDPL ), and Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Limited ( BCPL ) to pay off their existing liabilities. While IDPL and RDPL will be closed down after settling their current liabilities, the Union government will explore the option to undertake a strategic sale of BCPL and Hindustan Antibiotics Limited at a later stage, according to an official statement. “ In this way, the national assets would be utilized in the best national interest. The sale (of land) would be through open competitive bidding to government agencies and the outstanding liabilities will be met from the sale proceeds .” The public sector firms have also been asked to implement a Voluntary Retirement Scheme and Voluntary Separation Scheme for their employees. The remaining part of their land assets wil...

Pharmaceutical PSUs are back in the news. There are about five PSUs in pharma sector, which includes Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals ( KAPL ), Rajasthan Drugs and Pharmaceuticals ( RDPL ), Hindustan Antibiotics ( HAL ), Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals ( BCPL ) and Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals ( IDPL ). Out of these KAPL and RDPL were making profits, while HAL, BCPL and IDPL were declared sick by Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (BIFR). The current government is working on various schemes for their revival. Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers Ananth Kumar said Public sector undertakings (PSUs) in pharmaceuticals sector will not to be sold in future; instead a model will be developed for utilizing their assets in order to make them financially sustainable. The Minister said that a Task Force will be set up soon to look into all these aspects and pharma PSUs will get support from government in order to enhance the effi...