Drugs worth over Tk 500 crore are being smuggled into the country every year, hindering the growth of local pharmaceutical industry as well as posing health hazard to the people. According to industry sources, the contraband drugs include expectorant ''Phensidyl,'' and counterfeit and shoddy lifesaving drugs mainly from India.

Poor monitoring by the drug authorities and law-enforcing agencies is encouraging the unscrupulous drug traders to bring and supply the adulterated smuggled medicines across the country.

Officials at the Bangladesh Aushad Shilpa Samity, the platform of pharmaceutical industry, said the country''s medicine sector would have a much higher growth if the smuggling could be curbed. Moreover, they said, the unabated infiltration of impure drugs is creating serious health hazard.

"The damage so far done by Phensidyl to health and morality of thousands of juveniles and youths in Bangladesh is irreparable," said an executive of the association.

Annual domestic medicine market is around Tk 2000 crore of which 97 per cent demand is met by local industry. The rest 3 per cent imports include lifesaving drugs for complicated diseases like heart ailment, cancer and impotency.

Bangladesh pharmaceutical products have a booming export market also. Currently its export figures hover Tk 150 crore fetched from 26 countries and process is on to sell medicines to some new markets.

Local manufacturers have sought cash incentives from the government to help boost the medicine exports. Such incentives are being offered in India to medicine exporters, they said.

While local medicine manufacturers are increasingly taking care of quality and looking for boosting, smuggling is doing serious damage to the local market. The pharmaceutical association has taken up the issue with the concerned authorities repeatedly, but to no effect, the sources said. Drug administration officials, however, said they are serious about the smuggling of medicine and take immediate action despite manpower and logistic shortages.

"Whenever we get information about smuggled medicine, we raid the market and shops, and seize the goods," an official said.

Recently, the drug administration authorities have decided to form a task force to intensify their anti-smuggling drives.