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Protesting againstvictimizations by transfersand terminations on

alleged ground of poor sales;violation of terms of settlementwith regard to payment of annualincrement and daily allowances;illegal deduction from expensestatement; illegal change in theservice condition without givingnotice under section 9A; and forregularization of jobs of franchisefield workers under ContractLabour (Regulation & Abolition)Act; holding grievance committeemeetings; compliance of SPE Actincluding revised Letter ofAppointment in Form A, leave andservice books etc; initial reportsindicate 70 percent country-widestr ike by all sales promotionemployees of USV Ltd includingthe PSRs, BEs, Senior BEs and

Strike in USVMEs, under franchisees, on 24June. In view of admission ofFMRAI’s charter of demands inconciliation at Mumbai on 14June; FMRAI deleted this demandvide their letter of 20 June fromstrike notice of 7 June.

As per available reports, outof total 1545 field workers of alldesignations and of all divisionsin the company, 1065 participatedin the strike. Day long dharna andgate meetings were held beforecompany’s establishments atGuwahati, Kolkata, Ranchi,Patna, Lucknow, Delhi,Chandigarh, Jaipur, Indore,Raipur, Pune, Nagpur,Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi and

Bengaluru. Despite heavy rainslarge number of local councilsubcommittee members andleaders joined the strikingworkers. Women field workersalso attended dharna in differentstates.

In north east, field workers ofManipur, Mizoram, Aizwal,Meghalaya and Tripura alsoparticipated in strike. In Gujarat,dharna was not staged. However,USV field workers in theirrespective towns went to thedistributors place and recordedpar ticipation in strike. UttarPradesh Chemists and DruggistsAssociation supported the strikeand demands by issuing

statement. FMRAI’s secretary R.P. Singh, UPMSRA’s generalsecretary Rakesh Pandey, jointgeneral secretary SubodhAwasthy, USV’s zonal convenerAswini Bajaj and joint zonalconvener Hemant Singhaddressed the participants. InDelhi, dharna was organizedbefore zonal office. CITU’s Delhistate secretary Virendra Gaur,DSMRO’s president N. P. Saini,general secretary T. K. Mitra ex-president A. S. Chadha, statecommittee member Vijay Singhand USV’s joint convener SeemaBajaj addressed the gate meeting.At Chandigarh, dharna wasaddressed by state general

secretary Shiv Awasthy,Chandigarh unit presidentSandeep Sharma and convenersHemant and J. S. Rajput. (photo).

State-wise total field workers/ strike participants are: WestBengal – 108/70, Bihar-Jharkhand – 66/63, N.E.Region –48/46, Orissa – 50/49 (1 onleave), Uttar Pradesh-Uttarakhand – 131/111, Delhi –65/34, Punjab-Chandigarh – 99/24, Rajasthan – 45/45, MadhyaPradesh-Chhattisgarh – 78/76,Maharashtra – 270/103, Gujarat– 92/71, Andhra Pradesh – 128/128, Tamilnadu – 163/123 (3 onleave), Kerala – 90/75, Karnataka– 112/28 (15 on leave); East Zone(Zone I) – 272/229; North Zone(Zone II) – 340/214; West Zone(Zone III) – 440/250 and SouthZone (Zone IV) – 493/372.�

Delhi Bengaluru Lucknow Chandigarh

Demands Day

On 14 June, in at least 181 cities and towns in 22 states and unionterritories across India; thousands of FMRAI members brought outrallies, held public meetings and distributed handbills, organized

conventions, staged dharnas and demonstrations and submitted memoranda tothe state governments and to the governors for central government. It was acurtain raiser programme of FMRAI’s movement on medicines for people to beconcluded in massive solidarity day programme on 17 August which is also thecountrywide strike day of more than a lakh of sales promotion employees oforganized sector pharma companies generally known as medical representatives.

Leaders and members of the organizations of medical practitioners, trade unions andothers mass organizations also joined FMRAI’s programmes in Nagaland, Meghalaya,Assam, Manipur, Tripura, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh,Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Puduchery andKerala on FMRAI’s 5-point demands on medicines for people.

In Kolkata, a drug conventionwas held at Yuva Kendra presidedover by WBMSRU’s presidentRobin Deb. Dr. Amit Sengupta ofAIPSN was the main speaker.Others, who spoke in theconvention, include Dr. Gopal Dasand Dr. Amitava Bhattacharya ofIMA; Dr. Biswarup Sukul ofAssociation of Health ServiceDoctors; Samir Bhattacharya of12 July Committee, FMRAIgeneral secretary D. P. Dubey andWBMSRU’s general secretarySumahan Chakraborty. At Durg inChhattisgarh, a seminar on Drugsfor People was attended andaddressed by IMA secretaries ofDurg and Bhilai Dr.Anil Agrawaland Dr. P.K.Banerjee; senior IMAleaders Dr. R.S.Naik, Dr. AjayGovardhan, Dr.Sharad Patankar,Dr.Kaushlendra Thakur, Dr.(Mrs)Archana Chowhan; president ofpress club Ajay Behra; tradeunion leaders of postal andinsurance employees and others.

MPMSRU’s secretary SantoshSoni explained the 5 pointdemands of FMRAI. Seminarsupported the demands.

In Orissa, street cornermeetings were joined by leadersof CITU and other fraternalunions. At Rourkela, OSRUdelegation met housing andurban development ministerSarada Nayak. Delegationssubmitted memoranda togovernor of Bihar at Patna andgovernor of Jharkhand at Ranchi.In West Bengal, conventions wereheld and rallies were brought outat Murshidabad, Durgapur,Birbhum, North and South 24Parganas, Hooghly, Midnapur(West). Delegation submittedmemorandum to the governor ofWest Bengal. Rallies werebrought out at Guwahati, Tezpur,and Jorhat.

In Uttar Pradesh andUttarakhand, more than two

Erode Tezpur Akola

See page-4

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� July 2011 �

In this issue of FMRAI News, lead stories are onagitation and developments in respect of 5 point

medicine related demands of FMRAI. Pharmaceuticalscan not be marketed directly to the consumers.Therefore, drug MNCs, followed by Indian companies,require a large number of unorganized sales force whoare completely under their command and who can beused for their unfair practices to exploit the people forquick profit. Exploitation of the people and exploitationof sales promotion employees are inter-related.

Therefore, fight against pharma corporatecorruption and fight against field workers exploitationare also inter-dependent. Pharma companies have torely on personalized marketing among highly qualifiedprofessionals, the medical practitioners. Thisdependence is also the weakness of pharmacompanies. Medicine is such a commodity which hasto be regulated and controlled because of its verynature. It protects the life and health. Its unregulateduse is also dangerous for safety of life and health.

It is in this background FMRAI’s medicine related 5demands are urgent and important for the people andfor the field workers themselves. Governmentultimately published list of essential medicines. But,what for, there is no answer to that. Unless you link itwith availability and within reach of common man, thelist remains only for its academic value. Why the drugcompanies should not be compelled for compulsorymanufacturing of essential medicines of at least 25%of its total sales turn over? Government is trying tosell prime lands of pharma PSUs. Manmohan Singhgovernment professes for Aam Admi. It is supposed tobe a welfare state. Why central government should notmanufacture bulk essential drugs in these PSUs? Whythe central government should charge excise duty onlife saving and essential medicines? Cost-based exciseduty was converted as MRP-based, thereby, 8% exciseduty remains only notional. With higher MRP, the exciseduties also go up. FMRAI demanded complete tax reliefon all essential medicines including excise duty andvat.

The other question is price control of essentialdrugs. Since first DPCO, the mark up on cost foressential medicines remained at 100%. Where is theneed of reviewing this structure of pricing. Why allessential drugs should not be brought in this pricingstructure?

With world economic crisis being furtheraccentuated leading to sovereign indebtedness inseveral countries of Europe; serious cut in socialsecurities including health care system; contractionof market in general and pharma market in particular;big drug MNCs started their journey to so calledemerging economies with destination India being mostattractive because of neo-liberal policy of thegovernment and weak regulatory mechanism. Thiscolumn published that estimated Rs.48,000 crs of FDIhas come in pharma industry during 2007 – 2010through acquisition route alone. Added to that is FDIin outsourced drug trials in India to the tune $1.5 to $ 2billions in 2010 alone (TOI, 20 June, 2011). Exposure ofsuch outsourced drug trials in clandestine manner inAndhra Pradesh has recently come to light. There iscomplete absence of regulatory mechanism for suchclinical trials. In this context, strict regulatorymechanism and defence of self reliance of India in drugproduction has become important. India’s healthcareis not safe in the hands of drug MNCs. Governmenthas primary role of drug production and control ofsafety of life and health of the people of the country.�

Government’sresponsibility in supply

and control of medicinesIn the Complaint (ULP) No. 83 of

2011 under MRTU & PULP Act, filedby FMRAI and Abhijit Krishna Ghosh,the field worker of Alkem LaboratoriesLtd based at Kolkata; the 7th LabourCourt at Mumbai, presided over byjustice V. P. Avhad, passed interimorder on 11 May, 2011 as“Respondents are directed topermit complaint No.2 i.e.chargesheeted employee to berepresented by unionrepresentative in domestic enquiry.”Advocate R.D. Bhat represented thecomplainants.

Abhijit Krishna Ghosh, a salespromotion employee, designated as‘Marketing Executive’, was charge-

LEGAL NOTES

sheeted by the company anddomestic enquiry was held on23.3.2011 at Mumbai. The enquiryofficer refused to allow him to bedefended by the union on the groundthat ‘service rules’ of the companyonly allows a co-marketing-executiveas a defender. Against this ruling ofthe enquiry officer, present complaintwas filed.

The court held (1) that, “The socalled rules relied by the respondentsare admittedly not certified standingorders” and that, “the so called servicerules have no legal sanctity”; (2)“When there are no certified standingorders the Model Standing Orders willapply;” (3) that, Model Standing

Orders “permits to the workman to bedefended by a co-workman working insame department or by office bearerof a trade union of which he ismember.” and (4) that, in case of Abhijit“when there are no certified standingorders the complainant i.e.chargesheeted employee is to bepermitted to be defended by unionrepresentative or co-workman as perhis choice.”

Ultimately, by letter dated 20 June,the management of Alkem informedAbhijit that the next date of enquiry wasfixed on 30 August and that they “wouldabide by the Hon’ble Labour Court’sOrder dated 11th May, 2011” i.e. Abhijitmay be represented by FMRAI.

made, people do not get any relieffrom overcharging of medicine prices.The recovered amount goes togovernment’s coffer.

Pharma companies are wellknown of bribing for prescription andtrade. As parliamentary committee,Hathi Committee pointed out in theirreport decades back that, unlike othercommodities, medicine is such acommodity where one who purchaseshas no choice and one who decidesdoes not spend. This exclusivecommodity-market character opensup flood gate of unfair marketingthrough bribing route. FMRAI Newscarried on several such news items.Therefore, there has to be strictregulatory mechanism and controlwhich India failed so far despite centraland state drug control establishments.

33rd World Health Assembly ofWHO in May 1986 adopted resolutionno. WHA 39.27 ‘on ethical marketingcriteria for medicinal drug promotion’and asked governments, “Thesecriteria constitute general principlesfor ethical standards which could be

From page-4 Of 5 Demands on Medicines

Union can defend chargesheetedemployee in domestic enquiry

1. Prevent multinational companies’ take over of Indian companies;

2. Revive public sector drug units including vaccine producing plants and defend Indian sector companies;

3. Bring all items in the National List of Essential Medicines under cost-based price control as applicableto the ‘List of Essential Drugs’ under DPCO 1995 ensuring their availability through compulsorymanufacturing and through PSUs; and stop banning of well established products of Indian companieswithout substantial ground and protect jobs of workers;

4. Cap on all drug prices; minimum MRP on all essential drugs; no excise duties on essential drugs;minimum excise duties on other medicines and revert to cost based system; and

5. Stop unethical trade and marketing practices by drug companies and take effective steps against fakedrugs.

FMRAI’s 5-Point Demands on Medicines

CONDOLENCE

adapted by governments to nationalcircumstances as appropriate to theirpolitical, economic, cultural, social,educational, scientific and technicalsituation, laws and regulations,disease profile, therapeutic traditionsand the level of development of theirhealth system.”

There was no response from theGovernment of India to this WHOresolution and left the matter entirelyon the drug industry. Exposure inmedia of massive pharma corporatecorruption in marketing and trade,OPPI, the association of mainlymultinational drug companies, andIDMA, mainly representing Indiansector’s interests, for publicconsumption, came out with‘voluntary code of ethical marketingpractices’ which their membercompanies choose to ignore.

Ultimately Medical Council ofIndia (MCI) stepped in and issuednotification No. MCI – 211 (1) / 2009(Ethics) / 55667 on 10 December,2009 under section 33 of the IndianMedical Council Act, 1956 amending

“Indian Medical Council (ProfessionalConduct, Etiquette and Ethics)Regulations”, 2002 with str ictguidelines for medical practitioners.This regulation raises accusing fingerto medical practitioners and not to themain culprits, the bribe giver pharmacompanies.

Now there is strict regulation andpunitive provisions for the medicalpractitioners, but still there is no lawor regulation against unfair marketingby pharma companies bribing theirway for prescription. “Today (sales)promotion turned out to be large cashpayments, expensive gifts andsponsoring of pleasure trips to thedoctors,” writes Pharmabiz. Neo-liberalpolicy is restraining the government toact.

Facing criticism, the department ofpharmaceuticals of the centralgovernment issued a lopsidedvoluntary ‘Uniform Code ofPharmaceuticals Marketing Practices(UCPMP)’ in June, 2011. Yet, there isno proposal for regulation or law toprevent bribing by drug companies. �

Comrade Pinaki NandyComrade Pinaky Nandy (42), Win

Medicare field worker at Jorhat inAssam, died of road accident leaving

Comrade Dilip BhattacharjeeComrade Dilip Bhattacharjee (64), former member of

WBMSRU, passed away on 1 June following a prolongillness. He left behind his wife and a daughter.

Comrade Dilip Bhjattacharjee was son of late ComradePanchanan Bhattacharjee, one of the founder members ofWBMSRU and elder brother of BSSR Union’s generalsecretary Deepak Bhattacharjee. FMRAI mourns the deathof Comrade Dilip Bhattacharjee and sends heartfeltcondolence to his bereaved family members.

behind his wife, an infant son, ailing mother, twobrothers and sisters. He was elected twice as stateconvener of West Bengal council and was recentlytransferred to Assam. FMRAI mourns the untimelydeath of Comrade Pinaky Nandy and sends heartfeltcondolence to his bereaved family members.

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During last two years, on complaints of FMRAI,prosecution cases have been filed personally

against top executives of 10 companies by the stategovernments of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka and Uttarakhand for violation of SalesPromotion Employees (Conditions of Service) Act,1976 and its Rules specifically for not givingappointment letters in Form A, and for notmaintaining register of sales promotion employees inForm B, service books in Form C, register of servicebooks in Form D and leave account in Form E.

In Maharashtra, cases have been filed beforethe court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrateat Andheri, court no. 22 against (1) Fulford (India)Limited (case no. 70/SL/2009) and personallyagainst Samir Tamhane, Director HR; (2) againstAventis Pharma Limited (case no. 01/SL/2011) andpersonally against Shailesh Ayyenger, ManagingDirector, Pradeep Vaishanav, Sr. Director HR, andS. Ghogey, Director; (3) against Solvay Pharma IndiaLimited (case no. 02/SL/2011) and personallyagainst Nitin Gadgil, Managing Director, M. S.Garewal, Director, D. G. Rajan, Director and S. N.Talwar, Director; and before the court of MetropolitanMagistrate at Bhoiwada at Dadar, court no.5, (4)against RPG Life Sciences (case no. 1392/55/10)and personally against Ajit Singh Chauhan,Managing Director; and (5) Merck (India) Limited

For Violation of SPE Act

10 Companies Prosecuted(case no. 354/SL/2010) and personally againstMerck Diziki, Managing Director and K. Shivkumar,Director.

In Andhra Pradesh, cases have been filed beforethe court of XII Additional Metropolitan Magistrate,Nampally, Hyderabad against (6) Biological E (STCno. 1042/2010) and personally against G. V. Rao,“occupier of Biological E Ltd’; against (7) GenxPharma (STC no. 16/2011) and personally againstP. K. Hiradhar, CEO and G.V. Shesha Reddy, generalmanager finance; against (8) Vanguard Therapeutics(STC no. 17/2011) and personally against P.Koteshwar Rao, CMD, and against (9) Zydus Cadila(STC no. 818/10) and personally against Pankaj B.Patel. CMD.

In Karnataka, cases have been filed before theMetropolitan Magistrate, Traffic Court–VI, Bangalore,against (10-I) AstraZeneca Pharma India Ltd (CR/10/2011-12) and personally against D. E. Udwadia,chairman, K. S. Shah, Director, Ian M. D. Brimicombi,Director, Luigi Filais La Corte, Director, AnandhBalasundharam, Director and Manoj Singalchar, Sr.HR.

In Uttarakhand, cases have been filed before thecourt of Chief Judicial Magistrate at Dehradunagainst (10-II) AstraZeneca Pharma India Ltd (caseno. 1199/11) and personally against AnandhBalasundharam, Director.�

FIR to file against extortionof resignations for Pfizer

FMRAI’s charters of demandsto both Wyeth and Pfizer were

admitted in conciliation and arenow in the process of referenceto tribunal by the government ofMaharashtra. Desperate Pfizermanagement is trying to extractletters of resignations from WLLfield workers offering contractservice in Pfizer. From PiramalHealthcare to Abbott Healthcareit was job transfer, as is wherebasis, under the provisions of I.D. Act. From WLL to Pfizer it isthrough resignation.

Management’s attempt ofextor tion of resignation ispunishable offence under section384 and 385 of Cr.PC. FMRAI hasasked its units to file FIR innearest police station against theculprit managers, who areattempting extor tion of

Yogesh Kumar’svictimization issue

in tribunalYogesh Kumar had been

working for Pfizer since June,2006. Without any charge-sheetand domestic enquiry, withoutfollowing the rules of naturaljustice the company terminatedhis service on 28 January, 2011.RMSRU raised industrialdispute which was admitted inconciliation under 12(2) of I.DAct. Management did notappear in the conciliation. Theconciliation officer submittedfailure report on 11 April, 2011.On 3 June 2011, YogeshKumar’s dispute has beenreferred to Industrial Tribunal atJaipur for adjudication.

resignations from Wyeth fieldworkers.

Those WLL field workers, whowere duped by Pfizer andsubmitted resignation from manyyears of jobs in Wyeth andaccepted contract service ofPfizer; by now, are being forcedto leave job. Within a year’s timeat least 16 of them had to leavePfizer’s job. They include M.Kumar, Hyderabad; Mir Ahmed,Hyderabad; Srinivas,Vishakhapatnam; Chandrasekher,Kurnool; Vijay Premnath, Trichy;Ravi Shankar, Bangalore; R.Satish, Chennai; Ganesh Batra,Chennai; Prasant Tyagi, Delhi;Satish Kaushal, Mumbai; DeepakSakula, Mumbai; AmarnathMishra, Goa; Amit Jain, Jaipur;U.K.Bhat, Baroda; V. Sutar, Gujrat;Rajat Saha, Kolkata.�

Torrent fieldworkers in

A.P. abstaineden masse

Protesting againstharassments, victimizations,

coercion and threats of leadingfunctionaries by the management;notified by APMSRU, Torrent fieldworkers of Andhra Pradesh enmasse abstained on 20 June. Thefield workers respondedmagnificently braving the threatsof the management. Out of total175 field workers in the state, 126Torrent field workers of AndhraPradesh abstained from work onleave en masse.�

Within four days aftersuccessful all India strike,

USV field workers in MadhyaPradesh and Chhattisgarh of alldesignations and divisions,including those working under thefranchise, had to resort to yetanother complete strike on 28June. MPMSRU issued shor tstrike notice and all 76 strikingfield workers in two states and one

field worker, being seriously sick,abstained from work in protestagainst transfer of senior mostfield worker Feroz Jafar, who isalso the president of Bhopal unitof MPMSRU and joint convenerof USV council, termination ofservice of Jabalpur based fieldworker Avinash Kumar Mishra,deduction of expenses and nonpayment of LTA etc.�

Settlement in EmceePharmaceuticals

The second wage settlement between Emcee Pharmaceuticals,West Bengal and WBMSRU was signed on 23 May covering 18

sales promotion employees of the company. The settlement was signedunder the provisions of Industrial Disputes Act for a period of threeyears, effective from 1 October, 2010. The settlement shall derive aminimum benefit of Rs.1952 and maximum of Rs.2748 with average ofRs2289 per field worker per month.

There are two grades in the pay scales and grade promotion willbe automatic, on completion of 15 years in first grade. The first gradestarts from Rs.3500 and ends at Rs.5150 with annual increment rangingfrom Rs.90 to Rs.130 and the grade II starts from Rs.5450 and ends atRs.8420 with increments ranging from Rs.140 to Rs.190. The basicpay of all sales promotion employees have been fitted into the scaleas per their years of service from the date of their joining. The variabledearness allowance shall be paid as per West Bengal government’snotification whereas house rent allowance shall be @ 10% of basicand VDA; LTA shall be Rs.900 upto 15 years of service and Rs.1500beyond that. Daily allowances have also been revised.�

In M.P. & ChhattisgarhUSV field workers’ two

strikes in a week

Indore, A gate meeting was heldaddressed by CITU’s MadhyaPradesh state general secretaryPramod Pradhan, MPMSRU’spresident S. K. Talukder, jointgeneral secretary S. S. Tomar,treasurer Anurag Saxena,secretary Sandeep Chaturvediand Indore unit’s secretaryManish Thakkar. A delegation, ledby Pramod Pradhan, met thelabour commissioner, submitted amemorandum and had longdiscussion who assured to lookinto the demands and pursue thesame at the appropriate level.

... at Indore & Raipur

155 members of Jalandharunit attended its annual generalbody meeting on 19 May at GuruNanak Dev Library Hall. Generalsecretary Shiv Awasthy and otherleaders Wadhera from Moga,Chander and H S Ranu from

From page-4

Large number of membersfrom Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur,Ambikapur and Raigarh joinedstate level dharna of Chhattisgarhat Raipur and stageddemonstration. A public meetingwas addressed by MPMSRUleaders. Led by CITU’s statepresident Ajeet Lal and itstreasurer Maruty Dongre,MPMSRU’s vice president N. P.Shukla and secretary SantoshSoni marched to labourcommissioner’s office, stageddemonstration and submittedmemorandum.�

AGB meeting of Jalandhar

Bathinda and Sahni fromJalandhar addressed thepar ticipants. The meetingunanimously elected R. Sahni aspresident, Vineet Sharma assecretary and Kanwardeep astreasurer.�

Motor cycle rally at Alwar on 14 June

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Printed by D P Dubey, published by D P Dubey on behalf of Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives’ Associations of India and printed at SatyajugEmployees Co-operative Industrial Society Ltd. 13 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Kolkata-700 072 and published at 60-A, Charu Avenue Kolkata-700 033

EDITOR : D P DUBEY

Registration No. WBENG/2001/6430 Postal Registration No. KOL RMS/106/2010-2012��� � !"##

thousand members joined programmes including forming human chainin the centre of the city of Lucknow and near major hospitals.Memorandum was submitted to the governor B.L. Joshi in delegation.In Himachal Pradesh memoranda were submitted at Shimla, Solan,

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Mandi, Hamirpur,Kangra andDharmshala. InRajasthan, delegationmet health secretary atJaipur and submittedmemorandum.

In Tamilnadu,15000 leaflets in Tamilwere distr ibuted. Amassive rally of 450 strong, comprising of TNMSRA members, fraternaltrade unions and students of two nursing colleges were taken out atErode. Demonstrations were staged before collectorate at Vellore and

before central busstand at Coimbatore.Dharnas were stagedat Dindigul andCuddalore. In Kerala, arally to the Rajbhawanwas taken out atThiruvanantapuramand memorandumwas submitted to theGovernor. Gate

meetings were held in front of the collectorates at Kollam and Calicut.Conventions with fraternal unions were held at Ernakulam, Pallakadand Thrissur forming Samara Sahaya Samithis. In Karnataka, at Mysoredemonstration was staged.� (Alwar photo on page 3)

Kolkata

Durg

From page-1

5-point demands of FMRAI on medicines for people are mainly inthree areas:-For price control, complete removal of all taxes and to ensure

availability of all life saving and essential drugs by compulsorymanufacturing;

-Against pharma corporate corruption of ‘pay for prescription’ and‘pay for trade by illegal discounts’ and

-For defence of self-reliant Indian pharma industry including PSUs.In SLP Case No. 3668/2003, the Supreme Court directed the Union

Health Ministry to review and expand the ‘List of Essential Drugs’ (LED),which is having only 74 drugs at present; submit the same in the Courtand bring those under price control. Drugs and their formulations inthe LED has maximum limit of 100% cost-based mark up since DrugPrice (Control) Order, 1979 (DPCO, 1979).

However, under influence of powerful multinational and nationaldrug lobby, the Government, under some unsustainable plea, submittedin the Supreme Court a different list, the ‘National List of EssentialMedicines’ (NLEM). NLEM has since been revised in June, 2011 having348 drugs and formulations. Unlike LED, NLEM is having no relevancewith price control. Joint committee of central government and drugindustry could not come to any common understanding on price controlof items in NLEM as the industry is asking for complete removal ofcost-based price control, voluntary fixation of prices and instead of‘control’ only ‘monitoring’.

The NPPA (National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority) was set upby the central government in August 1997 for making available‘pharmaceutical products at reasonable prices.’ In 14 years of NPPA,prices of medicines, including essential and life-saving drugs, havegone out of the reach of common man. And now, the new chairman ofNPPA, G. Balachandran says that the NPPA “needed to maintain afine balance between the interests of consumers and producers”.(Extracts from interview by Joseph Alexander, New Delhi, June09, 2011).

He also said, “NPPA considers the cooperation of thepharmaceutical industry as a pre-requisite condition.” Here is a sampleof cooperation of the industry Balachandran is seeking for. In April,2011, after 20 years of legal wrangle, Supreme Court finally askedGlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals to pay Rs.71.21 crs to Drug PricesEqualization Account (DPEA) of the central government forovercharging Betamethasone group of skin ointments in violation ofDPCO, 1979. Out of total Rs.2328.52 crs outstanding in 786 such casestill January 31, 2011, NPPA could recover just Rs.202 crs. Defaultingpharma major companies are Cipla, Cadila, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s Laband Pfizer. “By challenging drug price fixation orders in various courts,the pharma companies have been just denying the very opportunity ofgetting medicines at fair prices to the poor patients.”(From editorial,Pharmabiz by P. A. Francis, April 19, 2011). Even if full recovery is

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A massive rally against diesel,kerosene oil and LPG price

increase and raising slogans ondemands, preceded the generalcouncil meeting of BSSR Unionat Dhanbad on 25-26 June. Thegeneral council meeting wasinaugurated by CITU’ssecretary Dipankar Mukherjee,former MP and ended withconcluding speech by CITU’svice president and CPI(M)’sleader in Lok Sabha BasudevAcharia, MP. Chairman of thereception committee, CITU’s allIndia vice president, i tsJharkhand state president andworking president of CoalWorkers Federation of IndiaS.K. Bakshi welcomed theparticipants. Prabhulal, generalsecretary of Dhanbad districtcoordination committee of tradeunions, Hemant Mishra ofAIIEA, Debashish Baidya ofBEFI, former general secretaryJ. S. Majumdar also addressed.

General Council Meeting of BSSRU

meeting resolved to achieve10000 membership in currentyear and also adoptedresolutions in suppor t of 17August all India str ike, onagitation and strike in pursuanceof state-related demands,against pr ice increase ofpetroleum products anddemanding compensation by30% increase in wages andallowances, in solidarity with thestrike of bank employees, coaland P&T workers.

The general councilconstituted four commissions anddiscussed the reports, placedreports in planary sessions andadopted the reports.�

Dipankar Mukherjee S.K. Bakshi Basudev Acharia

Andhra Pradesh being one of the six states for allIndia OSG movement on enforcement of SPE

Act, and on state-related demands of the fieldworkers; APMSRU members, joined by leading OSGmembers from Tamilnadu, staged a state leveldharna before the government secretariat at IndiraPark, Hyderabad on 13 June. A delegation, led byCPI(M)’s leader in the Assembly Julakanti RangaReddy and consisting of FMRAI’s secretary T.Kameswar Rao, APMSRU’s joint general secretaryI. Raju Bhat and secretary A. Nageshwar Rao metAndhra Pradesh chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddyon 13 June, submitted memorandum containingdemands and explained the demands. The chiefminister assured to advise the labour department tolook into the demands favourably.

The dharna was presided over by APMSRU’spresident Mukund Kulkarni. Julakanti Ranga Reddy

Meeting with A.P. Chief Minister on Demands

141 general council membersand 32 observers attended. The

State Dharnas at Indore & RaipurIn pursuance of state-related demands, MPMSRU

staged state level dharnas at Indore for MadhyaPradesh and Raipur for Chhattisgarh on 13 June.This was preceded by staging dharnas anddemonstrations by units and submitting memorandato district administration.

Members from 14 units of MPMSRU in MadhyaPradesh staged day long dharna at Dawa Bazar,

At Raipur

MLA, Dr. K Nageshwar, MLC, CITU’s vice presidentR. Laxmayya, RBI employees union’s secretaryKranthi, All India Lawyers union’s vice presidentParthasarathy, TNMSRA’s secretary V. Vasudevan,FMRAI and APMSRU leaders T. Kameswar Rao, I.Raju Bhat and other secretariat members ofAPMSRU addressed the dharna.�

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