The Forum for Internet Retailers, Sellers and Traders, (FIRST India), an arm of India SME Forum (ISF), has written to Union Ministry of Health volunteering “to suggest draft guidelines” that would “enable adoption of digital means and remove impediments for online sale”.
This letter comes in the backdrop of the Union Health Ministry issuing showcause notices to several e-pharmacies questioning the legality of their business and pricing mechanism. The Ministry, reportedly, is also considering a ban on sale of medicine through e-pharmacies and stringent regulation mechanisms.
The forum, which has 97,000+ direct paid members and over 900,000 MSME subscribers, said it was formed after the inclusion of retailers and traders as part of MSME definition, and “is working to create a conducive policy ecosystem which will enable offline traders and sellers adopt digital way of doing business.”
The letter is addressed to the Drugs Controller General of India, with copies marked to the Union Health Minister, Mansukh Mandaviya; Union MSME minister, Narayan Rane; and Secretary DPIIT.
It says that many members of FIRST India had “immensely benefited” by the explicit orders during pandemic times which allowed medicines to be sold online through e-commerce. “This opened a bigger stream of business for offline pharmacists as they could cater to larger set of audience who had valid prescription,” it said.
It said, elderly people made maximum utilisation of the opportunity of ordering medicines online.
Pointing out that the forum was cognizant of quality control requirements, it pointed out to e-commerce as a delivery/courier agency facilitating the fulfilment chain.
“The key to the effectiveness of this chain is that all drugs and medicines are sourced from the same manufacturers and transported according to strict standards under the licence issued to the pharmacists who are sellers on e-commerce sites,” it added.
Larger market
Similarly, in the past years it has been proved that online sellers have access to a larger market, strong supply chain, better price discovery and data management, thereby enabling tracking of orders placed and being able to run businesses more efficiently, the letter mentions.
“During pandemic times, our pharmacists jumped to the aid of the government and consumers by adopting e-commerce and digital mechanisms of doing business. Pharmacists have benefitted from advanced technologies that established players like Dunzo, Tata1mg, Flipkart, Netmeds, Amazon, etc,” it said.