The Government of Maharashtra has decided to implement caps on the price of masks to stop the "black money" profit from Thursday 8th October 2020.This decision was taken by a four member expert committee said State Health Minister Rajesh Tope.
A 28 page report was submitted by the committee to Tope stating the violations in sale and manufacturing of Masks during the Covid-19 Pandemic under Essential Commodities Act 1955,Legal Metrology Act 2009 and Prevention of Black Marketing and the Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act,1980.
The Committee has calculated a net profit of up to 45% over production cost to supply chain to supplier. Tope said that the Hospitals can now buy masks at a 30% lower rate than market price which would be beneficial.
The panel in their report have suggested to cap the prices of Masks depending on their category. They have asked to cap the price of N-95 Mask from Rs 19 to Rs 45. They have also said that the two and three ply mask should be capped at Rs 3 and Rs 4 respectively. They also suggest the Doctor's Kit should be capped at Rs 127 with filtering facepiece (FFP) at Rs 12.
Currently the rate of two and three ply masks is something between Rs 20 to Rs 45 while the price of a filtering facepiece is around Rs 200 to Rs 600.
Managing Director of Venus, Mahesh Kudav stated that the manufacturing cost calculated by the state committee does not factor the present average material cost. He said that in the last two three years the production and demand of this masks was pretty low and so was the need for raw material but it has increased in these uncertain times.
He added that the government gave no support in this investment or while scaling up manufacturing of masks.Whereas Magnum Director Rakesh Bhagat has requested for more time to think about the response to this report by the panel.
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