KP business fraternity slams Punjab ***** Act
 

PESHAWAR: Expressing solidarity with the protesting Pakistan Chemist and Druggist Association and Medical Stores Association, the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pharmaceutical Association on Monday rejected the Punjab ***** Act envisaging the establishment of the Drug Regularity Authority (DRA) at the provincial level.

Speaking at the joint press conference at the Chamber House, acting president of SCCI Muhammad Iqbal and representatives of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pharmaceutical Association said they would also join the country-wide protest against the Punjab ***** Act adopted recently by the Punjab Assembly if it was enacted.

Flanked by Imtiaz Ahmad, president, Pakistan Pharmaceutical Industry, and former SCCI president, Riaz Arshad, Muhammad Iqbal said the chemist and druggists of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would join hands with the chemists of Punjab and they would also close down their shops in protest against the decision of the Punjab government.

The press conference was held hours before the suicide attack at the protest rally of the Pakistan Chemist and Druggist Association and Medical Stores Association on the Mall Road in Lahore that killed several people left.

Referring to the contents of the Punjab ***** Act, Muhammad Iqbal said the Punjab government had brought amendments to the Drug Act 1976 that were likely to mess up the registration, price evaluation, marketing and sale of medicines at retailer level.

He said the SCCI stood by the Pakistan Chemist and Druggist Association and Medical Stores in Punjab and elsewhere to reject and oppose the Punjab government’s plan of establishing DRA at the provincial level.

The businessman said that health department had been devolved after the 18th Amendment and the provinces were authorised to establish DRAs.

However, the provincial assemblies passed resolutions asking the federal government to retain the DRA to regulate the registration, price evaluation, marketing and sale of medicines at the federal level.

The Punjab Assembly has recently passed the ***** bill that envisages the establishment of the DRA at the provincial level that would destroy the pharma and ***** sector, Muhammad Iqbal said and added the provincial government should withdraw the law.

He said the Punjab government didn’t take the stakeholders into confidence while enacting the law to set up DRA that forced the pharma and drug sector to resort to protest.

The Chemist and Druggist Association along with the pharmaceutical companies will go on complete strike if Punjab government didn’t withdraw its decision within three days,” the acting SCCI president an**unced.

Muhammad Iqbal said the SCCI supported protest of chemists and pharmaceutical companies as the Punjab government’s decision would badly affect the medicine industry in the country rendering thousands jobless besides the loss of billions of investment of the local industrialists.

The SCCI and Pharmaceutical Association asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to take **te of the situation and direct the provincial authorities to rescind the decision.





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