ISLAMABAD, June 6: The Senate was informed on Friday that sales tax on life-saving drugs would be abolished.

Federal Minister In charge for Health Sherry Rehman told the house during the question hour that the Federal Board of Revenues (FBR) had been asked to withdraw sales tax on life-saving drugs to facilitate people by bringing their prices down.

She said that the government would establish a drug regulatory authority to issue drug production licences and ensuring quality of medicines.

She said the government was making all-out efforts to control quality of drugs.

She said that so far 30,000 drugs produced locally were sent for testing to the laboratory and 8,000 convictions have been awarded to those found guilty of substandard manufacturing.

To a question, the minister said a plan was under way to set up 815 urban clinics in seven major cities of the country, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta.

She said the design of the project had been revised and now poor sub-urban slums would benefit from these clinics. The project would be implemented at a cost of Rs4.3 billion and would be completed next year.

Answering another question, Sherry Rehman said that Hepatitis control programme was under way with a focus on ensuring preventive measures that would be completed at a cost of over Rs2.5 billion. She said Rs500 million have been allocated for this programme during the current financial year while Rs340 million have, so far, been spent.

She informed the house that Rs4.8 billion were allocated for national programme on family planning and primary healthcare in the current financial year and an amount of Rs3.2 billion had, so far, been released.