With a view to strengthen the drug regulatory system in the country, the All India Drugs Control Officers' Confederation (AIDCOC) has proposed to the centre to set up an intelligence branch at Central and state level to help tackle the issue of spurious drugs. The Confederation stressed that considering the threat and heath hazards spurious or counterfeit drugs pose to the pubic, it is high time for the Centre to focus on developing a dedicated intelligence network efficiently trained to check on this clandestine activity.
This demand comes on the lines of the recommendations submitted by Dr Mashelkar Committee which clearly pointed out that it was necessary to establish an intelligence branch at central and state level with adequate police help to check the sale and distribution of spurious drugs throughout the country. According to Ravi Uday Bhaskar, secretary general of AIDCOC, the people who are involved in these illegal racket have a huge network in place that work in a very systematic manner, which is very difficult to infiltrate today with limited intelligence and manpower scrunch we are facing at the centre.
“One of the best way to deal with the issue of counterfeit and spurious menace is to disband the whole network by gathering information against them and taking requisite action. For this we need to establish a special dedicated team trained to generate intelligence by prying on the activities through strong networking channel. Therefore its is necessary to establish and form a separate wing with officers having aptitude and skills for investigation,” Bhaskar stressed.
He further added that the centre should take measures to train the existing officials in this area and further increase the manpower specifically to meet the demands. The Confederation further stressed to address the manpower issue in the drug department, the government should take measures to adopt the recommendations submitted by the Task Force by increasing the manpower to one drugs inspector for 25 manufacturing units and one drugs inspector for 100 sales establishments.
Bhaskar further added, “These recommendations should be treated as priority agenda and requisite number of officers should be appointed at Central and State level. In fact we strongly feel that the recommendations of Dr. Mashelkar Committee on strengthening the drugs control organisations should be implemented on priority basis.”