The Pharmacy Council of India has approved only half of the total number of pharmacy colleges offering BPharm / DPharm courses in the country while the rest are functioning on approval from All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) with having no PCI recognition.
Interestingly, the apparent anomaly is due to the dual system of registration that does not make PCI registration mandatory for all pharmacy institutions. PCI feels that the absence of complete control over pharmacy education can cripple its ability to bring about proper regulation in this sector. Of the 445 institutions that are functioning with AICTE sanction, only 243 have PCI approval, it is learnt.
According to PCI data, the anomaly is preventing 11,082 pharmacy students from getting registered with PCI. The annual intake of AICTE approved pharmacy colleges is 24,672. Of this, the student intake of PCI recognized colleges come to only 13,590. The PCI feels that unless compulsory registration with the council is made mandatory for all institutions, it will not be able to enforce uniform regulation in pharmacy education sector.
Presenting the case, PCI officials felt an urgent need for the amendment to Pharmacy Act to extend compulsory registration requirement beyond "community pharmacy". The Registration of PCI is mandatory only to dispense drugs. For all other areas of the profession, such registration is not required. This should be changed, they felt.
"The annual intake of the 414 Dpharm colleges comes to 24843 today. The Post Graduate student intake is 2686 per year. However, PCI do not have a proper statistics of the human resources requirements in this area as they are not required to be registered with the council," officials point out.
The value of pharmacists and their role in health care was highlighted during a programme jointly organised by Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) and PCI here on the World Health Day (April 7, 2006). The PCI stand on registration was clarified by Archana Mudgal, Registrar cum Secretary, PCI during her talk on "Pharmacists as Human Resources for Health in search of Recognition in India."