Apart from monitoring drug manufacturing, the government is soon to release a new bill to be able to regulate the medical equipment industry specifically which till now has remained unregulated, a healthy ministry official said on Thursday.
This new bill would be replacing the existing Drugs and Cosmetics(Amendment)Bill, 2007 which will have to be withdrawn as it is still pending in the Parliament.
Joint secretary of Health Ministry, Arun Kumar Panda:
“Regulation of medical devices industry has been a major challenge for the government and present thousands of such equipments are used in an unregulated manner.”, said Joint secretary of Health Ministry, Arun Kumar Panda while giving this information.
The upcoming new bill to regulate the medical equipment industry will be put up before the cabinet by the government. While addressing a seminar, Arun Kumar said that this new bill will have a separate chapter on medical devices called, ‘Harnessing Medical Technology for inclusive healthcare in India’.
The main purpose of the bill would be to monitor and set standards for medical devices. If the Bill passes, it will help in strengthening the domestic manufacturing industry, thus making the medical devices easily accessible and affordable to people all over the country.
According to Arun Kumar Panda, India is still lagging behind in making its mark in the medical devices sector, while it is doing exceedingly well in the pharmaceutical sector the last few years.
By providing better infrastructure for offices all across the country and skilled manpower, the government is considering strengthening the regulator body, ‘Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation’, he said.
Efforts by the government have already started, an allocation of Rs 1800 crore at national level and Rs 1200 crore at state level has already been made.
