You can now ensure that the medicines you buy from stores are within the approved price range set by Indian drug price regulator, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). A mobile app, 'Pharma Sahi Daam' made for the purpose will also help you lodge a complaint through Pharma Jan Samadhan website in case of overpricing. The link will be provided in the app. Action will be taken against any complaint with 48 hours of its receipt.

Pharma Jan Samadhan tries to reduce customer problems relating to non-availability of medicines, the sale of new medicines without priced being approved by NPPA and refusal for sale of medicines without proper reason.

The app also lets consumers discover alternate brands of medicines and their prices. This helps the customer to remain aware of a cheaper brand and ask doctors to prescribe the affordable one.

There have been numerous incidents of medicines being sold at higher prices came to light. According to a report by Money Control, many companies sell around 634 drugs at a higher price than the amount decided by Drug Price Control Order (DPCO).

The app is available on Android and iOS platform as 'Pharma Sahi Daam'. It was launched by NPPA in 2016 and has 100,000 downloads on Google Play Store. However, users of the app have complained of it not being updated and showing multiple errors. Some also said that the app is slow and consumed a lot of time.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 30, 2018 09:47 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).