As the internal network of the currently decentralized seven licensing offices of Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration is expected to be completed by August, the State drug department is all set to be connected in the proposed national network. The decentralized licensing system of Maharashtra FDA was the major hurdle in linking the State with the CDSCO network.

The WHO funded national drug control networking programme was planned with the pilot project involving drug control departments in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi and West Bengal in the first phase. However, the programme is yet to be implemented despite the national infrastructure was ready long ago.

The Maharashtra FDA, which has the distinction of having decentralized system for issuing licenses both for trade and manufacturing, had to be connected their regional offices with its headquarters first before linking it with the national network. However, the state FDA was waiting for the Centre's guidance as far as the hardware compliance is concerned to go ahead with the internal networking.

In Maharashtra, there are at present seven revenue divisions with independent licensing authority vested with respective Joint Commissioners. The revenue divisions are Aurangabad, Amravati, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune and Thane. Each of these divisions are again has different district administrations under them for issuing trade licenses. These district administrations are headed by respective Assistant Commissioners.

Thus, total networking of the state administration itself required separate software, which is to be developed by the state FDA. Therefore, the state can be linked with the national networking only after the Maharashtra system is made compatible with the Central hub. Though the software and hardware required for the national network is already been provided by the Centre as part of the WHO programme, the State took the decision only recently to set up the internal network.

The central networking is aimed at linking the licensing details of each state. With this, the center will be able to monitor the entire data thereby minimizing the chances of states issuing licenses for new drugs or new fixed dose combinations. On the other hand, the software would also ensure that there is some privacy for the data entered by one state and the other. It would be accessible only through passwords. Even blood banks licensing would be part of the information network once the project is complete.

The Chennai based Accel-ICIM is the system provider for the nationwide computerization. The company has already started validating its software by making use of it to computerize the entire drug control operations in the state of Tamil Nadu at present. Once this exercise is over, the same can be replicated in other states except Maharashtra. All other states except Maharashtra has the single licensing authority like Tamil Nadu.