MARDAN, March 26: Residents of Mardan have criticized the government for imposing General Sales Tax on medicines, and termed it illegal, unethical and injustice with the poor.

In a survey, people complained that they had already been deprived of free treatment after the government had changed the health policy sometime back.

With the imposition of GST, they said, poor patients had been confronted with severe monetary problems. They termed it injustice with people.

The provincial president of PPP and chief of the Yousafzai tribe, Khwaja Mohammed Khan Hoti, condemned the levy of 15 per cent GST on medicines. The majority of the patients, he pointed out, belonged to the poor class, therefore, the GST would hit them the most.

Expensive medicine would not only increase the miseries of poor patients but would also encourage smuggling of foreign medicine which would be another shock for the economy of the country, he apprehended. He said market was already flooded with the Indian and Iranian medicines and if such tendency continued it would attract more medicine from the said countries which was not a good omen for the local economy.

He criticized the ban the government has imposed on the private practice by the government doctors and said it was creating more problems for people.

Yusuf Shah Aryani, a prominent lawyer of the district courts, wondered why the pharmaceutical companies had been given so much facilities by the government.