The Centre has approved investment of Rs 6000 crore to 74 industries in the pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing sectors under the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said here on Saturday.

Shah was addressing a gathering after dedicating the newly built campus of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) at Gandhinagar.

"The Union government has taken a holistic approach and begun the process for the development of a cost-effective, sustainable and affordable process for 16 APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredient) and two KSMs (key starting material)," he said.

In the next one decade, India will not just become self-reliant but also be in a position to export them (APIs and KSMs), Shah added.

"The Narendra Modi government has given permission for the investment of Rs 4000 crore to about 48 small and big industries in the sector of pharmaceutical manufacturing under the PLI scheme," Shah said.

The PLI scheme was also launched for medical device manufacturing, under which the Centre has given permission for investment of Rs 2000 crore to 26 investors, he said.

The government has built three bulk drug parks with a total cost outlay of Rs 3000 crores, he said.

For India to become self-reliant in the field of medical devices, the government has come up with the National Medical Device Policy 2023, and now a separate policy is being made for its export as well, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader said.

Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya was also present on the occasion.

Out of seven NIPERs in India, the one at Gandhinagar will be the third campus to be fully functional after Mohli and Guwahati, while construction work for the campuses in Hajipur, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Raebareli is in progress, he said.

"NIPER is today a big name in higher, technical education, with around 8000 students having so far proved their success after joining the industry. NIPER is also credited with more than 380 patent registration, and more than 7000 research papers," Shah informed.

He said the Rs 2,200-crore budget granted for the state-of-art laboratory will help research, adding that more than 270 MoUs had been signed between NIPER and the industry.

Shah thanked the pharmaceutical industry and said the Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana could not have been made possible without its help.

People have been able to save medicines worth Rs 30,000 crore in the last nine years because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dedication to the poor and desire for their upliftment, the Union minister said.

In 2022-23 alone, they saved Rs 7,500 crore on medicines, he added.

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