Faced with an acute shortage of regulatory and other office staff and delay in establishing a separate department for Indian System of Medicine, the Kerala ISM wing under the control of State Drugs Control Department is struggling to enforce the Drugs & Cosmetics Act properly in the state.

Kerala, being a hub of Ayurveda, has more than 1200 licensed manufacturing units but are monitored by just three drug inspectors.

According to sources in the ISM sector, in spite of repeated requests from the ISM (Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani) officials to the concerned authorities for meeting the minimum requirements of manpower, the state drug control department has not initiated any action. Although Ayush Department had proposed in 2007 for separate department for ISM in every state, in Kerala, so far no measures have been taken for the establishment of an ISM department. An officer in the rank of Deputy Drugs Control is looking after the country's traditional medical system under pressures from so many quarters.

Apart from the head office in Thiruvananthapuram, the state has three zonal offices, one each in Kozhikodu, Kochi and Kollam and these are looked after by three zonal drug inspectors. When the Kollam zonal office has a jurisdiction of three districts including it, the other two offices have five districts each. In these two zones alone, more than 800 manufacturing units are operating and many of them are having popular products with decades' old tradition. The manpower shortage often becomes a bottleneck in implementing the D&C rules, and issuing licences, an official in the department told Pharmabiz.

The grievances are affecting not the zonal offices, but also the head office in the state capital where it is located in a narrow hall in a secluded place at the drugs control directorate with no infrastructure facilities. ISM industry sources said it is due to the passive approach of the authorities that the ISM wing is facing these problems even after two years of the departmental bifurcation. Sources said it is the duty of the State Drugs Controller, under whom the ISM wing is operated, to send proposals to the government for filling up the gap of manpower requirements and to satisfy other infrastructural needs of the head and zonal offices. Even the head office is working without a telephone.

While interacting with Pharmabiz, the industry sources said as long as the Ayurveda wing is continuing along without a departmental set up of its own, the Ayush department in the Union Health Ministry will not serve any financial assistance to improve the ISM system in the state. Previously the department used to be funded adequately and nearly Rs 10 lakh out of that previous funding still lying unused with the drugs controller. Even then, the zonal offices are having no vehicle of their own and lacking basic facilities, the sources said.

When contacted, M P George, the State Drugs Controller said that many a time he had sent proposals to the government in the past but the procedures to clear the proposals are taking time.

An officer of a zonal office said, all the zonal offices need a minimum of two clerks and the government has given the approval for appointing the clerks but the authorities are not taking any initiative to fill up the posts. He said for the effective monitoring of the units, at least ten drug inspectors are required in all the zones. Currently , the zonal drug inspectors have no powers as far as financial matters are concerned and that create problems in the zonal offices.