Gov notifies draft guidelines for public procurement of medical devices

Implants, hospital equipment and medical devices should have a minimum local content ranging from 25-50 per cent to qualify for public procurement, as per DoP's draft guidelines.

According to the notification, in order to be eligible for public procurement, medical disposables and consumables will require a minimum local content of 50 per cent.

Moreover, medical electronics, hospital equipment, surgical instruments would be required to have a minimum of 25 per cent local content.

For implants, the government has set a cut off percentage of 40 per cent while for other medical devices like diagnostic reagents, the minimum threshold for local content has been set at 25 per cent.

The guidelines have been set following the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) identifying DoP as the nodal department for implementing the provisions of PPO 2017 related to pharmaceutical sector.

Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) said the guidelines are based on its current understanding of the medical devices market in the country.

It is however in the process of collecting data regarding total capacity and production of various categories of medical devices.

The department would consider various aspects like the level of competition in the market in different segments and the processes involved in the manufacture of medical devices, for prescribing the local content limit for each category, the notification said.