The Union Ministry of Health has proposed an intensive training programme for the drug control officers and drug inspectors across the country to carry out aggressive hunt on the spurious and counterfeited drugs. The programme, which will be under the monitoring of Central Drug Standard Control Organisation, has been assigned to the Maharashtra state Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the Drug Control General of India (DCGI).

The training programme, which is to be conducted in four modules within the year, would cost around Rs 6 lakh per module. Maharashtra, being a largest pharmaceutical state and also with history of cracking a number of serious spurious drug rackets both in the state and interstate, has been assigned the responsibility of undertaking the training programme on these merits.

According to S W Deshpande, Assistant Commissioner, FDA, Maharashtra, who coordinates with various state drug control departments and also with four zones of CDSCO to implement the training, each module of the programme is professionally designed to the current day requirement of tackling very complex problem of spurious drug issue. Though the present regulatory system has several major constrains like limited infrastructure, inadequate number of drug inspectors and less investigational arms and also inadequate drug testing facilities, the proposed training sessions would enhance skills and confidence level of officials, especially the young officers, to tackle the menace, he added.

Deshpande said that such an initiative was earlier designed and implemented by the All India Drug Control Officers Confederation (AIDCOC) on a voluntary basis. For this purpose, it had developed a software programme engaging a professional agency. However, this is the first time this kind of an intensive training programme is being implemented by the department. The programme, which will start in Mumbai from June onwards, will have representatives from all the stated drug control departments and also from the CDSCO zones.

At present, the industry as well as the government has become serious on the spurious drug menace, which has been increasingly affecting the patients and the genuine drug makers in the country. In the absence of an effective regulatory enforcement by the state and the central drug control departments, the industry itself has taken own initiatives to investigate about the spurious and counterfeit rackets.