Pharmaceutical trade has emerged as a key segment of the healthcare sector of this country. The trade has been reaching the medicines from 20,000 odd pharma companies all across the country through its network of 8 lakh retail chemists. The number of retail chemists in the country has been increasing year after year with steady rise in the healthcare spending and with least control on issuing trade licences. As a community, retail chemists are a very powerful segment in the society today. It can make pharma companies dance to its tunes, paralyse the entire drug distribution system and can create a national crisis with their organised action. Retail chemists have been aware of this power for the last more than 15 years when they started effectively unionising. The formation of All India Organisation Chemists and Druggists with state and district level associations under it, has given an added clout and national status to this community. Pampering of the trade with liberal margins for selling generics by several large, medium and small scale drug companies have made many in this community rich and arrogant over the years. These huge margins offered by pharma companies at the cost of patients have also made retail chemists extremely defiant with no regard to the appeals of their own apex body. Lack of unity amongst the pharma companies in dealing with the trade despite having their own associations has given a further boost to the growing power of this community. With the result, AIOCD does not seem to be the composite national body of pharmaceutical trade any more. The apex body has almost lost control on its state units and state units on district bodies. State or district level associations of the AIOCD dictate what number of stockists a company should appoint in an area, how many brands of a particular drug or its combinations should be available in the market, what should be samples policy, etc. Product Information Service (PIS) charges to be paid to the trade associations at the time of introduction of a new product is already a fait accompli on pharma companies for some years now. AIOCD has an understanding with IDMA in this regard to have a PIS charge of only Rs 2,000 for a new product in A class states and Rs 500 in B class states but several state associations are demanding much higher PIS charge from companies now. There are many other new regional and local demands made on pharma units without the sanction of AIOCD. Emergence of parallel trade associations other than AIOCD constituents in some states is yet another dilemma pharma companies are figuring out how to tackle. These confusing signals from the market place do not give any indication of a smooth sailing of pharma industry and trade in the near future. Such an uncertainty emerging out this anarchic situation in the trade should not be allowed to affect the public interest. That is the responsibility of both the industry and trade.