ACTIVE PHARMA INGREDIENTS PARK PROJECT
Delay in implementation ups cost by Tk 99 crore
The cost of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Park project is set to shoot up by around Tk 99 crore because of the delay in its implementation, said officials of
Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation.
The construction of the industrial park at Gojaria upazila of Munshiganj, which is supposed to produce basic raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry, had been remaining stalled for the last six months after missing two deadlines.
The four-year project that got an initial nod in 2008 with an estimated cost of Tk 233.50 crore will now cost around Tk 331.86 crore because of increase in prices of construction materials.
The government extended the deadline for the project to December, 2012 after the December, 2011 deadline was missed.
BSCIC officials said that the industries ministry had already sent the revised proposal to the planning ministry to increase the project cost.
They said that the government would have to allocate an additional Tk 43 crore for the project while the association of pharmaceutical companies would give an additional Tk 55 crore.
The Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industry initially wanted to set up the central effluent treatment plant at a cost of Tk 25 crore in the project area.
But, now the association has agreed to pay up to Tk 80 crore for the ETP, they said.
The BSCIC and BAPI will soon sign a revised deal in this regard.
A total of 42 plots on 200 acres of land are supposed to be constructed in the API Park.
Different pharmaceutical companies will take lease of the plots from BSCIC for producing raw materials.
Forty six per cent fund disbursement of the project were made but many of the lands were yet to be filled as they completed acquisition of the land in April this year, said API project officials.
Medicine experts feared that if the country cannot produce raw materials for medicines at API Park by 2015, drug prices would go beyond the capacity of the poor.
‘If trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights or TRIPS of WTO gets activated after 2015, the pharmaceutical companies will have to purchase the raw materials through patent rights from abroad, which means price of medicine in the country would soar high,’ said ABM Faroque, president of Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Society.
The society demanded that the government be active to construct the API Park so that it could go for production by 2015.
‘What did they do in the last five years? They even could not fill up the lands,’ Faroque said expressing his dissatisfaction. ‘If TRIPS of WTO gets activated in 2016, mass people would not be able to buy medicines.’
BAPI secretary general Abdul Muktadir said that they were also concerned about the delay of the project.
He, however, said that as they were hoping that the implementation of TRIPS for pharmaceutical industry would be extended, the delay might not cause huge damage.
The project will take more time to complete as roads, drainage system, electricity line, gas line and central effluent treatment plant have to be constructed, said Ataur Rahman, executive engineer of the project.
Different government ministries and departments are involved in the project and it may take more time to handover the plots after its completion, API park project director MA Baset told New Age on Monday.
-With New Age input
