The Central Government is planning to amend Drugs and Cosmetics Act and bring in necessary legal measures to incorporate clauses for capital punishment for the manufacture of spurious drugs. The Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj has expressed her desire to treat "mass murder for the sake of profit by death penalty".

In a meeting with representatives of the pharmaceutical industry here on Wednesday, the minister assured initiating necessary legislative changes in this regard in the forthcoming session of the Parliament.

Referring to the progress made by the Mashelkar Committee for Review of Drugs Regulatory System, the minister said that the recommendations of the committee would be implemented with immediate effect. The committee is to submit its recommendations within three months from now. The second sitting of the committee is scheduled on July 17, 2003 to consider the suggestions of the two sub-committees on finding ways to counter spurious drug problem and also to strengthen the regulatory system.

Constitution of special courts to try spurious drug cases and establishment of a network of informers are also actively considered by the committee. The last sub-group meetings had expressed displeasure over the ineffectiveness of the existing judicial system in curbing the manufacture and distribution of spurious drugs.

The minister also agreed to look into the problems faced by the pharmaceutical industry due to the clauses incorporated in the recent notification of Director General of Foreign Trade which made import of bulk drugs meant for value added re-export registration free. The industry representatives, led by Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (IDMA) had complained that the issue of import license subsequent to the export order issued would take at least 15 - 20 days, thereby causing delays and loss of export orders.

The IDMA was also unhappy with the pre-import conditions. They were of the opinion that international buyers would cancel their orders due to the inherent delays involved in complying procedure after effecting imports under the pre-import condition.

Industry sources informed that the minister instructed the Health Secretary to look into the matter.