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AiMeD appeals to Home Ministry and DPITT

In a letter to the Home Ministry and DPITT, Rajiv Nath brings the government’s attention to needless delays in reaching oxygen concentartors to patients. Read on…

“Due to present crisis of availability of oxygen concentrators, there is huge backlash against the re-seller of these items, which may be some genuine resentment against the black marketers and hoarders but even the bonafide and honest sellers are being bracketed in this perception and now being harassed. This will demotivate the sellers, who are using their entrepreneurial skills, experience and efforts for making available to the needy patient (either by manufacturing of importing from far away country), facing all the odds at this COVID-19 pandemic situation and high risk volatile market dynamics to save human lives.

One of our members, Paramount Surgimed Ltd. are the manufacturer of medical devices and also import some products of distribution in India. They have imported 100 units of 8 liters oxygen concentrators from China at a landed cost of Rs.45,09,969/- (Rs.45,100/- per unit) and had to face a police raid in late hours of Saturday night. Please note 8 litre per minute Oxygen @ 85000 Rs. Concentrator are more expensive than the 5 lpm oxygen concentrator.

There are no applicable Drug Act regulations currently or price caps by NPPA on these products and no Rules to fix MRP by Dept. of Consumer Affairs. Their labelled MRP @1.05 Lac Rs. Is less than 3 times the imports landed price (as per AiMeD’s guidelines for ethical marketing).

After bringing the consignment of office/ godown, necessary Quality Control checking by QC Department is carried out. Then necessary declaration and labeling procedure as per the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 and Packaging Commodities Rules, 2011 are being complied with which normally takes ¾ days of time. Then marketing process starts and to sell the same, necessary Invoices, E-way Bill, payments, book entry, etc. are being carried on which takes it’s own time. This is bonafide stock and sales commercial activity and this can’t be termed as hoarding or back marketing. Any needless coercive activity and harassment of both buyer and seller at this crisis time is deplorable. It is most unfortunate and creates un-repairable damage to the reputation of the concerned Company and scares off Importer & Manufacturer from medical Devices business with arbitratry applied regulatory actions. Not backed by Laws.

There has to be a distinction between a genuine manufacturer/importer and a fly-by-night operators. Even fly by night importer for this critical item are individual buyer / alumni members / RWA’s who are doing crowd funded imports and this is not illegal. An importer having all the required Licenses/ Permissions in this trade and a history of commercial activities, should not be harassed as hoarders and black marketers. We of course can appreciate actions against the hoarders and black marketers to bring sanity to the trade and we even protested when legal metrology compliance was waives to ease custom clearance as we knew potential misuse.

Therefore, we request your kind self to sensitise your officials accordingly and not to disturb bonafide commercial activities of Internal Trade in this period of critical emergency as it can lead to delayed access to needy patients gasping for oxygen as even Govt. officials and individuals are chasing our Secretariat for deliveries against orders booked with our Members.”
Rajiv Nath, Forum Co-ordinator, AiMeD

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