The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) is in the process of recruiting 70 officials including 50 drug inspectors for its zonal offices throughout the country. The strengthening of manpower comes as part of its efforts to overhaul the infrastructure prior to the establishment of the proposed Central Drugs Administration.

The central office has recently carried out interview with candidates for 14 posts through the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and is planning to call for applications for another 40 to 50 posts, informed sources from CDSCO. The advertisements seeking applications from eligible candidates for these posts will be published by UPSC within next to two weeks.

"The process of recruiting more drug inspectors and other officials are in pipeline. The move is to strengthen the national drug regulatory mechanism for a transparent, time bound operations," the source told Pharmabiz. With the restructuring of drug regulations and setting up of standards for medical devices, biogenerics and stem cell products, the regulatory agency will have to handle a mammoth work in the near future. The strengthening of manpower is to hasten the effective implementation of these decisions in detail.

The CDSCO has a staff strength of just 30 in the country at present to carry out various tasks including issuing of licenses as Central Licence Approving Authority and regulating the standards of imported drugs, according to sources. Assigning of more drug inspectors and other senior drug officials like deputy drugs controller will improve the functioning of the mechanism, they added.

Lack of manpower in the East, West, North and South zonal offices and the two sub zonal offices of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat has resulted in lagging of inspection procedures. For instance, the sub zonal office of Andhra Pradesh is manned with only an assistant drugs controller who has to inspect 250 blood banks in the state and to approve license for new blood banks along with the other routine jobs.

"The move to appoint more drug inspectors and officials in CDSCO should be appreciated. Most of the senior drug control officials in CDSCO have retired in past three years. Considering that there has not been any fresh recruitment of staff under the office for almost last 11 years, the staff strength of CDSCO at present is not enough to handle the routine jobs," said Ravi Uday Bhaskar, secretary general, AIDCOC.

Inadequacy of staff in the state of Andhra Pradesh sub zonal office has resulted in piling up of license applications for blood banks in the state for past five to six months. "The total number of drug inspectors in state drug control offices across the country is nearly 1300 and we often hear criticisms that the numbers are not enough to monitor the drug industry promptly. How can we think about brisk administration in CDSCO with a limited manpower of around 25 to 30?" he pointed out.

The statutory functions undertaken by the CDSCO includes laying down standards of drugs, cosmetics, diagnostics and devices, regulating market authorization of new drugs, issuing licenses to manufacture certain categories of drugs as Central Licence Approving Authority for blood banks, large volume parenterals and vaccines and sera and regulating the standards of imported drugs.