India needs 1741 inspectors as against existing 899 inspectors, as per data available with the government as on December 2003. If the drug administrative system has to function with only 50 per cent of its strength, the implementation of the drug legislations will be very badly affected, Ravi Uday Bhaskar, president of All India Drugs Control Officer's Confederation (AIDCOC) told Pharmabiz.

A recommendation was made to the Central government as early as 1991 that there was a need for a total of 3000 drug inspectors for the Drugs Control machinery in the country as compared to a strength of 703 inspectors at that time. And the strength of drugs inspectors increased to only 899 in the subsequent 13 years in the country. This growth in the number of drug inspectors has not been proportionate to the development in the number of pharma companies and pharmacy outlets.

During these years, the government has not been adding to the manpower needs but opted for an amendment to Drug Rules reducing the requirement of inspections from twice a year to once a year under Rule 51 and 52 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945.

AIDCOC has submitted representations to successive Health Ministers at Central and State levels and to the Parliamentary Committee seeking strengthening the drug control departments. It had also met authorities to convince them on the issue. But no response was received from the government and it remained passive despite a clear directive from the Supreme Court on strengthening of the DCO.

Notwithstanding these constraints, the AIDCOC has created ways to use the available resources effectively, primarily, focusing on self-development activities through continuous education programmes and by disseminating legal and technical information to drugs inspectors all over the country. In this direction, AIDCOC has organized a workshop on improving investigational skills of the drug officers of South Zone at Chennai in April, this year.

It is significant to note that the AIDCOC is also pursuing to establish an 'All India Training Academy' in future. With a view to achieve this objective, the Confederation is also trying to secure land around Mumbai, he informed.

Meanwhile, the AIDCOC's continuous effort to pursue its agenda of having technically qualified persons as heads of the DCOs has yielded results with the Technical Officers West Bengal Association and Delhi Drugs Control Officers Association succeeding in getting favourable directives from the respective High Courts for appointing technically qualified persons as the director-DCA and drugs controller, respectively.