The All India Drugs Control Officer's Confederation (AIDCOC) has requested the central government to recognise it as an approved body to conduct training programmes for the officers under state and central drug authorities and also for training consumers and consumer organisations.

The Confederation is seeking approval for training drug control officers as a Non-Government Organisation (NGO), while the government has entrusted the responsibility, of organising training programmes for the regulatory officials and pharma professionals, to the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Education (NIPER), Mohali.

In a letter to the secretary for Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the confederation proposed a plan to conduct specific training programmes as a first phase of the project. The plan includes organising training sessions for improving investigational skills of drugs control officers, quality audit and inspection for assessing Good Manufacturing Practise (GMP), to conduct orientation training programme for drugs control officers as per the module devised and implemented by NIPER, programmes on GMP and consumer education for proper use of medicines.

The letter also asserts that the confederation is in a position to conduct four training programmes and four workshops on 'Improving Investigational Skills' at zonal level during 2007-08. AIDCOC is planning to conduct one of these workshops at Chandigarh for the benefit of officers from the North Zone, before March 31, 2007. It also reveals that the confederation have a capacity to undertake responsibility to conduct orientation training programmes for the drugs inspectors during 2007-08, as per the training module implemented by NIPER.

"We honestly believe that we can conduct training programmes in few selected areas in the first phase at zonal level more effectively if the responsibility to conduct training programs is entrusted to us," explains the letter. The letter also describes that the confederation has been on its efforts to enhance the capabilities of drug control officers through seminars, workshops and focused training programs on technical, legal and managerial issues in the last 11 years.

The confederation has submitted a brief blueprint on selection criteria and the course contents of the training module on GMP and quality audit and inspection for assessing GMP to the ministry for further discussion, according to sources from AIDCOC. The confederation expects to take off the programmes with the recognition and financial support of Government of India.

AIDCOC is already organising one-year training programme on GMP, designed and implemented with the help of professional management consultant firms and has accomplished training on two batches of officers from different states including Maharashtra, where the state government has recognised the programme, they added.