Pharma PLI Draws Rs 46,744 Crore Investment, 57 Devices Made

The correct answer is Rs 6,940 crore. The bulk drugs scheme, which covers key starting materials, drug intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients, was approved in 2020 with that outlay and it works on 41 critical products where imports dominated. Rs 3,420 crore is the outlay of a different scheme, the one for domestic manufacturing of medical devices, also approved in 2020, so option A confuses two schemes of the same year. Rs 15,000 crore belongs to the pharmaceuticals scheme approved in 2021, which supports complex generics, biopharmaceuticals and other high-value products, so option C is wrong. Rs 17,275 crore is not an outlay at all; it is the targeted investment under the pharmaceuticals scheme, a figure that actual investment has crossed. Keep outlay, target and actual investment separate while revising, because questions are set on exactly this distinction.

The correct answer is 57. Production of 57 unique medical devices has begun under the scheme, and the list runs from magnetic resonance imaging machines, computed tomography scanners, cath labs and linear accelerators to C-arms, mammography machines, ultrasound systems, anaesthesia machines and heart valves, most of which were earlier brought in from outside. The other three options are all numbers from the bulk drugs scheme and are placed here precisely to test whether the two schemes have been mixed up: 48 projects were approved under that scheme, 39 of them have been commissioned, and those commissioned projects make 28 ingredients. Keeping a small table of scheme, year, outlay and the headline count is the safest way to hold these figures apart in the examination hall.

The correct answer is the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers. The Department of Pharmaceuticals sits in that ministry and runs all three schemes, the one for bulk drugs, the one for pharmaceuticals and the one for medical devices. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare deals with hospitals, public health programmes and the regulation of drugs through its own bodies, but it does not run these incentive schemes, so option A is wrong. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry handles trade policy and industrial promotion in general and is not the implementing ministry here, which rules out option C. The Ministry of Science and Technology funds research through its departments and has no role in disbursing these incentives, so option D is also wrong. The schemes are aligned with the Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat goals of cutting import dependence.