Close on the heels of amending the Patent Law to bring in product patent regime, the government is all set to come out with a separate legislation for data protection.
"We will bring in a separate legislation for data protection. It would be a holistic piece of legislation," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told reporters on the sidelines of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry annual general meeting on Tuesday.
He said government would look into the need for data protection of all sectors before bringing in the legislation.
Earlier delivering his keynote address, he sought to allay any fears of rise in prices of medicines and said such fears were unfounded.
Nath said about 97 per cent of the drugs were off-patent and there were life saving drugs besides Drug Price Control Order, adding the country had not brought in the law just for compliance.
He said the domestic pharmaceutical industry exports were pegged at Rs 1400 crore (Rs 14 billion) with a compounded annual growth rate of 30 per cent.
Asked about dropping virtual SEZs out of the proposed Special Economic Zones legislation, he said, "The government was trying to find a formulation to give Export Oriented Units this flexibility."
Nath said he favoured making the duty neutralisation and export promotion schemes more effective and was prepared to look into the bottlenecks faced by exporters.