Ensure patients get affordable Covid-19 drugs, end black marketing, say MPs

Amid complaints about over-charging for treatment, members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs on Wednesday asked senior government officials to ensure affordable treatment to Covid-19 patients and take steps to tackle black marketing of medicines.

The MPs in the multi-party panel headed by senior Congress leader Anand Sharma wondered why costly medicines are preferred and promoted when cheaper and effective drugs are available.

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"Why are they not being promoted despite being equally effective... There is a need to check recommendation and prices of expensive medicines pushed by pharma companies," sources quoted the MPs as saying in the meeting to to discuss 'Management of Covid-19 pandemic and coordination with State Governments, phased unlocking, resumption of economic activities, inter-state movement of people and goods and state of preparedness'.

An earlier meeting of the Home panel scheduled on June 3 to discuss Covid-19 and lockdown was postponed after several MPs expressed their inability to attend the meeting due to quarantine measures taken by respective states.

On Wednesday, Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla gave a detailed presentation on the actions taken by the Ministry of Home Affairs, including the steps it took to enforce the lockdown as well as the unlocking process.

The steps taken by the MHA to help the state governments in tackling the pandemic were also explained by Bhalla during the meeting in which Health Joint Secretary Luv Agarwal also attended.

During the meeting, sources said, the MPs told the officials that the drugs for Covid-19 treatment should be made easily available for patients. The price of these medicines should be affordable, they said.

Amid reports of black marketing of Covid-19 drugs, the MPs also asked the officials to take steps to tackle the issue. Sources said the panel also told the officials to promote cheaper and easily available domestic-made medicines for Covid-19.

MPs also discussed the provisions of the National Disaster Management Act and the Epidemic Act and urged officials to analyse both in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and see whether there is any overlapping. The MPs suggested that steps should be taken to synchronise the two Acts, so that it does not work in counter purpose.

This is the second meeting of a Parliamentary panel to discuss Covid-19. On July 10, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology headed by senior Congress MP Jairam Ramesh met to discuss the "preparedness to deal with Covid-19 and other pandemics in future". Top government officials had told the panel that a vaccine for the virus infection would take at least a year to be available for treatment.

At least two more meetings of Parliamentary panels have been scheduled to discuss Covid-19 related issues – the labour panel on July 20 and the Health panel on August 4.

The Standing Committee on Labour, which was to meet on Wednesday but rescheduled to July 20 after panel chairperson Bhartruhari Mahtab went into self quarantine, will take up the issue of changes made in labour laws by several state governments during the Covid-19 lockdown, which had attracted criticism from various sections. It will also seek clarifications from the officials about the impact the pandemic had on migrant labourers.

On August 4, the Standing Committee on Health headed by senior Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav would be meeting for a briefing from the Health Secretary on the status of 'Outbreak of pandemic Covid-19 and related Contingent and Mitigation Plan'.

However, the attempt by Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairperson Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary to take up discussions on Covid-19 and utilisation of PM-CARES funds did not succeed as BJP MPs stone-walled the suggestion citing rules. Chowdhury has now taken up the matter with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Though he did not make any specific demand in his letter to Birla, the Congress Leader in Lok Sabha gave his version of what happened in the July 10 meeting of the PAC. While he pitched for taking up the Covid-19 issue, the BJP MPs insisted that the PAC can discuss only CAG reports.

Chowdhury cited previous instances to rebut this and said the PACs of Parliament and state Assemblies had taken up matters other than the CAG reports. He is learnt to have cited that the PAC has taken up issues like pilgrimage to Sabarimala and developments in telecom sector, which were not part of CAG reports.