Govt unveils new schemes for meditech sector

The government on Friday launched a scheme aimed at strengthening the medical devices industry with an initial outlay of ₹500 crore for three years 2024-2025 to 2026-27.

It consists of five sub-schemes—common facilities for medical devices clusters with an outlay of ₹100 crore, marginal investment for reducing import dependence ( ₹180 crore), capacity building and skill development for medical devices ( ₹100 crore) and medical device promotion ( ₹10 crore).

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The scheme targets critical areas of the medical device industry covering manufacturing of key components and accessories, skill development, clinical studies, development of common infrastructure, and industry promotion.

Calling it a game changer, health minister J.P. Nadda said, “The government is committed to strengthening the medical devices industry through focused interventions that yield substantial and transformational outcomes.”

Poised to lead

"India is poised to lead globally in this sector. The aim of this new scheme is to reduce import dependency, and give a boost to Viksit Bharat@2047, and make the sector atmanirbhar", Nadda said.

India is the 4th largest medical device market in Asia and among the top 20 global globally.

According to the department of pharmaceuticals, the market size of the Indian medical device industry is $14 billion. India has started exporting ventilators, PPEs, diagnostic kits, surgical gloves, coronary stents, radio-imaging equipment, body implants etc.

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Exports grew 13.8% over the last 3 years is while imports are down 2.08%.

“Indian medical device manufacturers who had become traders and importers and shifted to pseudo manufacturing will now be again motivated to become actual manufacturers and produce complete products and their components in-house," said Rajiv Nath, forum coordinator, the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry. 

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