PESHAWAR, June 17: Expressing concern over the sky-rocketing prices of medicines, the Pakistan Chemists and Druggists Association, Peshawar chapter, has slammed the government for presenting what it called an “anti-people” budget with no relief given to the poor patients.

A meeting of the PCDA, held here on Monday with Arbab Javid Ahmed in the chair, rejected the fiscal budget for the year 2002-3 through a resolution passed unanimously and asked the government to withdraw the general sales tax (GST) on drugs which had been imposed on March 20.

The participants also condemned the government for levying GST on ghee and reducing import duty on cars. They said the GST imposed on ghee would hit the poor people hard who were already groaning under the weight of high prices of all edible commodities.

The government, they added, had failed to keep its own commitment made during the businessmen convention in Islamabad that the GST on medicines would be withdrawn.

According to them, they had pinned great hopes on the budget that the GST on drugs would be withdrawn and the patients would heave a sigh of relief, but that didn’t happen. They asked the government not to reduce import duty on cars because cars were used by the well-off people and instead withdraw the GST on drugs, which were the need of all and sundry.

The PCDA exhorted the government to ask the multinational drug manufacturers to bring down the prices of their products by 50 per cent because they were selling their products at rates 500-1000 per cent costlier than they did in neighbouring India and Bangladesh.