Guwahati: A Rs 200 crore scam in the sale of medicines by suppliers to the Assam health department leading to loss of revenue to the exchequer has been unearthed by the State Government.

The Government during an inquiry, found that medicine suppliers were avoiding payment of taxes by not revealing the retail prices of the medicines, official sources said today (Oct 31).

The then health commissioner Prafulla Sarma had initiated the probe in 1991 and found that the medicine suppliers had robbed the government of Rs 200 crore revenue, they said.

The Government had recently found that a particular medicine supplier was manipulating the wholesale prices of medicines to quote them much lower than the retail cost, so as to avoid paying sales tax at a higher rate at both the wholesale and market price stages.

This supplier had quoted the wholesale price of 1,000 tablets of a particular medicine at an extremely low Rs 45, when its retail price was above Rs 1,600, the sources said.

In view of this heavy revenue loss, the Government has decided to order a high-level probe to punish the offenders, the sources added.

PTI