Health Minister T Harish Rao criticized the Centre for its decision to increase the prices of life-saving medicines by 12%. The Minister stated that this decision would take away healthcare from the poor and middle-class sections of society. The price hike would affect more than 800 essential medicines, including painkillers, antibiotics, anti-infective medicines, and those used in the treatment of fever, infections, high blood pressure, skin diseases, and anaemia. The Minister accused the BJP government of working to trouble the common man and stated that this decision was an extremely painful and wicked act. He also questioned whether this was the ‘real Amritkaal’ that the BJP government had promised. The Minister highlighted that the government had been increasing the prices of petrol, diesel, and gas regularly and was now ready to hike prices of life-saving medicines, which would be an additional burden on the poor and middle-class people.
