The Kerala state drug control department as part of its annual data mobilization exercise, has asked all registered drug manufacturing units in the Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homeopathy sectors to submit their sales and production data for the last financial year by the end of April.

In a official circular issued last week, the Department has directed the manufacturers to submit details on their annual income from sales and other related details for the year 2002-03 to the Drug Controller’s Office in Thiruvananthapuram.

Although the annual industry data mobilization is part of a Central Directive issued to all the state departments, it is not often followed by the most of the states every year unless there is a special instruction from the State governments or Central government.

However, According to K T Gopinathan, Drug Controller, Kerala, the state does it on a regular basis and thereby the department’s statistics on the sales, exports and production of the drug industry in the state is updated every year.

Kerala has 892 Ayurvedic drug manufacturers, 18 homeopathic drug-manufacturing firms and another 7 units in the Unani and Siddha sector.