Medicine production & supply hit

NIRMAL MANGAR

Gangtok, Aug. 7: The manufacture of several medicines in Sikkim, including those to treat heart ailments and diabetes, and their transportation to the rest of the country have been affected because of the indefinite strike, officials of pharma units said. Sikkim has over 14 pharmaceutical units, which also manufacture antibiotics prescribed during pregnancy. But because of the strike, trucks that carry raw materials to the factories and transport the drugs to Siliguri have not been plying on the arterial NH31A, which connects Sikkim to the rest of the country, since August 3. Traffic between Rangpo, a town on the Bengal-Sikkim border where most of the pharma units are located, and Sevoke, has been affected because of the strike. Only Sikkim government-owned buses have been plying on the highway stretch with police escorts for the past few days, administrative officials said. On an average, 20 trucks travel between Siliguri and Sikkim daily with raw material and packed medicines. The firms procure raw materials mostly from Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The raw materials are transported to the medicine factories from Siliguri through NH31A. Officials of several medicine factories in Sikkim, where many such units have come up because of tax sops, said they were suffering losses because of the strike. “We have an acute shortage of inputs and packaging materials. We are not being able to dispatch the medicines because of the strike. The storerooms are over-stocked. We will have to shut down the production units in a week’s time as our stock of raw materials will get exhausted,” said Ravindra Chakila, the plant head of Alkem in Sikkim. Yesterday, representatives of all 14 pharmaceutical companies submitted a memorandum to the Sikkim minister of state for commerce and industries, Neeru Sewa, requesting him to provide police protection to trucks that bring raw materials to the factories and transport the medicines to Siliguri for distribution elsewhere. Binod Nigam, the plant head of Indchemie Health Specialities Pvt Ltd, said: “We have information from our distributors that the drugs used to treat diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and pregnancy-related drugs, including antibiotics, are running out of stock.” According to sources, some of the bigger units in Sikkim manufacture drugs worth over Rs 30 crore a month while the smaller ones produce medicines worth around Rs 8 crore. “Medicine flow will be hit if the matter is not taken up seriously. The pharma units are likely incur heavy loses once production is stopped,” a pharma unit head said. Minister Sewa said the letter from the medicine factory representatives had been forwarded to the chief secretary. “The state police department will be requested to provide additional protection (to the trucks). Arrangements can also be made for the trucks to ply along with the government buses,” a senior government official said.