SUKKUR, Aug 16: The Sindh Health Minister Ahsan Ahmed has said that private practice by the doctors serving at the government hospitals should not be allowed.

Speaking at a press conference here on Friday, he termed imposition of general sales tax an unjustified and harsh measure, badly affecting 70 per cent of the population of the country.

He claimed that he had been pleading for the withdrawal of the GST on drugs with the federal ministers of finance and commerce and with the Central Board of Revenue.

He said that he had also written to President Gen Pervez Musharraf on this human issue and hoped that the government would consider withdrawal of GST. He had proposed that at least drugs purchased by the public sector hospitals should be exempted from GST.

The minister said that only one or two countries of the world had imposed GST on drugs and that too at the rate of one or two per cent and not 15 per cent as was the case in Pakistan.

Ahsan said that his department had blacklisted 16 pharmaceutical companies on the charges of violating rules.