The preliminary meeting for the formation of Pharmaceutical Engineers Group (PEG) was held on January 10, 2003 at IDMA office, Mumbai. Recognizing the changing role and importance of engineering in pharmaceutical industry, the Technical Sub-committee has proposed the constitution of the Pharmaceutical Engineers Group.

The executive committee of IDMA has unanimously approved the constitution of this Group. J L Sipahimalani, Chairman, Technical R&D & QA Sub-committee, briefly outlined the need for such a Group in the meeting.

G R Asrani, described the rationale of PEG in the meeting and detailed the aims and objectives of PEG as to provide a platform to air and share views, evolve strategies to conserve scarce resources, evaluate the needs of adopting modern technologies, highlight risks & identify means to prevent disasters, recommend methods to upgrade equipments and facilitate implementation of cGMP. It was suggested that healthcare be suitably included in the finalized aims and objectives.

G. R. Asrani, Vikas Kulkarni and Vasudev Kataria were unanimously requested to take the responsibilities of Chairman, Hon. Gen Secretary and Editor, Newsletter respectively.

It was decided to commence the activities of PEG by organizing seminar on 'Cost Effective HVAC, how?' on February 15, 2003. Sasidharan suggested the affiliation of PEG with ISPE at an appropriate time. Sasidharan and Sheesh Gulati suggested that another seminar be organized on the subject of 'Clean Rooms'.