Even as the estimated percentage of NSQ and Spurious Drugs from retail outlets in the country was 3% and 0.023% respectively, none of the samples drawn from air, sea ports found to be NSQ, spurious as part of the pan-India national spurious drugs survey conducted for 2014-16.

Out of 69 tests performed on the samples from retail outlets, they failed in 28 tests. The total number of non- compliance out of all tests of 1011 NSQ samples from Retail Outlets was 1,251, of which, Dissolution and Assay accounted for 56.4% of the non-compliance.

State wise, NSQ percentage estimates for retail outlets varied from 0 to 8.82% (with the exception of Lakshadweep); States/UTs like Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Puducherry, Gujarat, and Punjab were on the higher side of NSQ (4.20–8.82%) whereas, States/UTs like Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, West Bengal, Delhi, Jharkhand and Kerala were on the lower side of NSQ (0-1.97%).

The estimated percentage of NSQ Drugs from Government sources in India was 10.02% and for Spurious Drugs was 0.059%. During analysis of samples declared NSQ from Government supply chain, the following trend was observed: Civil Hospital Stores: 11.03% NSQ, State Government Medical Store Depots: 10.44% NSQ, ESI Dispensaries: 9.01% NSQ, CGHS Dispensaries: 4.11% NSQ. State wise, NSQ percentage estimates varied from 0 to 17.39% percent (with
the exception of Sikkim); States like Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab were on the higher side of NSQ (11.39-17.39%) whereas Chandigarh, Delhi, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal were on the lower side of NSQ (0 - 7.93%).

The total number of non-compliance out of all tests of all samples from Government sources was 1,177, of which, Assay and Dissolution accounted for 46.1% of the non-compliance. The fact that the NSQ from Government sources are 3.17 times higher than in the retail highlights that there is something amiss in the existing procurement processes especially in states where the NSQ is much higher than the National average.

Further, lack of uniform levels of enforcement may be leading to difference in the extent of NSQ in retail outlets and Government supply chain in different States/UTs. The NSQ’s are much higher in case of parenterals as compared with oral dosage forms and this area therefore needs special attention.