The Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) has completed a mass recruitment process in the first week of March by giving away appointment letters to 156 candidates in one go, probably the biggest recruitment since the inception of the administration, in a move to hasten the monitoring activities of food and drugs marketed in the state.

With the new recruitment, the administration has filled almost all the vacant posts in its labs by appointing 95 drug analysts and 20 food analysts summing up a total of 113 scientists in drug testing services and 35 in food testing process of day-to-day operations. There were 96 posts of drug testing scientists and 21 posts of food testing experts out of the total 149 sanctioned government analyst posts vacant, of which almost all of them were kept unfilled for past five to six years.

The recruitment was conducted through a selected committee of experts in pharmaceutical sector and would help the administration to carry out more number of tests in limited time period, said H G Koshia, commissioner, FDCA, who headed the expert committee. Though the posts are filled on contract basis for five years, chances are that with the expertise the candidates gaining from these period will make them eligible to continue as regular analysts for the rest of their period.

"Earlier, almost 900 to 1000 samples collected by our workforce were left untested due to the staff shortage in labs," he explained. For instance, in 2008-09, almost 2906 drug samples were collected in random basis though only 1837 were tested in the Baroda Laboratory. "The fresh inclusion of more scientists in the laboratory will make it sure that we will conduct test on all the collected samples and even can do more sample tests," added Koshia.

Beefing up of staff strength would reduce the work load of the existing staff, and would result in early disposal of test results even as at present the office has to wait months to get test reports on samples submitted with the laboratory for further actions.

The FDCA's process to fill up 59 posts of drug inspectors is also on the way of completion, with the Gujarat Public Service Commission (PSC) called for applications from eligible candidates in the state, last year. The administration would be able to carry out monitoring activities more rigorously, once these posts are filled. The induction of more government analysts would be a back up for conducting tests faster for further prompt actions, said Koshia

As reported earlier, the state government has sanctioned the FDCA's request for recruitment of 115 junior scientific assistants, 59 drug inspectors and 41 food inspectors, almost an year ago. With the induction of 59 more drug inspectors, the administration will have a work force of 84 drug inspectors.