Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Anupriya Patel, has clarified that paracetamol is not banned in India, countering recent social media rumours.

Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, she stated that the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has not received any information about such rumours, as informed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

While paracetamol remains available, Patel noted that several Fixed Dose Combinations (FDCs)—including those containing paracetamol with other drugs—have been banned in the country in the recent past. A complete list of these banned combinations is accessible on the CDSCO website.  

Patel also addressed concerns over the price inflation of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, outlining the role of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), which fixes and monitors the prices of drugs, including OTC drugs.

She further informed the parliament that the government has rolled out the Free Drugs Service Initiative under the National Health Mission to ensure the availability of essential drugs and reduce out-of-pocket expenditure of patients visiting the public health facilities, including government hospitals and rural primary health centres.

Under this initiative, financial assistance is provided to states and union territories to supply free essential medicines in public health facilities. The support is based on the requirements outlined by them in their Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs) within their overall resource envelope for the said mission.

This assistance can be used not only for the procurement of drugs but also strengthening or setting up of robust systems of procurement, quality assurance, supply chain management and warehousing, prescription audit and grievance redressal, and for the dissemination of standard treatment guidelines.

Additionally, support is provided for the implementation of the Drugs and Vaccine Distribution Management System (DVDMS)—an IT-enabled platform used to track the procurement and availability of essential medicines in real-time.

A central dashboard has also been developed to facilitate monitoring of supply chain management activity at the national level. 

To support an uninterrupted supply of essential drugs, Patel said, the Medical Stores Organisation (MSO) and Government Medical Store Depots (GMSDs) maintain active rate contracts for 697 drug formulations.

MSO supports 1,152 registered indenters across India, who can request supplies via the MSO-DVDMS software up to four times annually.