By IANS,
New Delhi: Unhappy with the government’s new drug pricing policy that will “reduce their profits” and “create hassles”, 10,000 chemists across Delhi Tuesday threatened to go on a strike March 15 if their demands were not met.
Terming the policy as “unrealistic”, Kailash Gupta, president of the All India Chemists and Distributors Federation said certain points like reduced profit margins of the chemists, maintaining prescription records and installation of air conditioners in shops should be scrapped.
“We have written to the government and if they don’t agree we will go on a strike,” said Gupta.
“We don’t have any objections with the prices of the medicines being increased or decreased… what we want is that our margin of profit should remain unaffected,” he said.
Further, the government’s decision making it mandatory for all chemists to keep a record of one prescription per patient will create unnecessary hassles, said West Delhi Chemist Association chairman Mohit Satija.
“It’s going to take extra space to store the prescriptions… how would a small time chemist with limited space in his shop be able to do that,” he asked.
Requirements like installation of air conditioner in every shop is further adding to the woes.
“In a country where there is so much of load shedding, how would the AC help,” said Satija.
“The implementation of this new policy will severely affect 70 percent of the chemists all over India and they will be forced to close down their business,” he added.