The department of Indian systems of medicines (ISM) in Tamil Nadu is facing severe shortage of district siddha medical officers (DSMOs) and several of the medical officers have been given additional charges of nearby two or three districts. About 30% of the posts of DSMOs are lying vacant.
In addition to this, the DSMOs are also assigned with the duty of drug inspectors, but they generally do not get time to visit or inspect manufacturing units. This forces the companies to take advantage of the situation and most of the manufacturers escape from all kinds of inspections.
The siddha practitioners in the government sector and the graduate doctors working in the private sector have been demanding the government to create a separate drugs control department for ISM in Tamil Nadu. But the government is not showing any interest to heed to their demand. Similarly, the officer of the ISM Commissioner is also apathetic in strengthening the enforcement activities in the drug manufacturing area of siddha, unani and ayurveda medicines.
Though there are 32 revenue districts in the state, only 23 districts have district level medical officers. The remaining nine districts are under the additional charges of nearby DSMOs, sources from the department informed. For issuing licences, a separate office for state licensing authority (SLA) is functioning. The DSMOs are unable to visit the manufacturing units for regulation purposes as they have to attend hospitals more than one in a day.
In the case of drug testing, the department has very few facilities and most of the drugs are not often tested, says a siddha expert doing researches in siddha medicines. One drug testing laboratory (DTL) under the government is operating at Anna Nagar ISM campus. There are some approved private labs which are utilized by private players in emergency cases. Very few companies have their own in-house labs.
When Pharmabiz contacted some supporters of Indian systems of medicines, they alleged that most of the siddha and ayurveda manufacturing companies in Tamil Nadu did not follow GMP regulations strictly. There are about 150 manufacturing units in the private sector.
Another allegation is that many people manufacture poly-herbal formulations by pulverizing individual herbs collected from local areas and sell them in the market without drug licences. No action is taken against such fake manufacturers or illegal sellers. The workload of the DSMOs often prevents them from initiating actions against such malpractices. They have to attend meetings in different districts called by respective district collectors; hence they do not have time for enforcement.