Karnataka government has opted for a woman to take on the post of State Drugs Controller. This is the first time in the State that a lady officer from the Karnataka Health and Family Welfare department has been selected to head the drugs control department. The new in-charge of the drugs department- Dr B Vidyamani has also been promoted as the director of health and family welfare. She was upgraded from her earlier posting of joint director, department of communicable diseases. Now Dr Vidyamani will also shoulder a second responsibility as drugs controller. She takes on after Dr RD Desai's retirement last month.

Dr Vidyamani has been communicated by the State government to spend her major potion of her time at office at the department of health and family welfare. She has been instructed to clear the files at the drugs control department for an hour. Her hour-long presence would not allow her to oversee operations of the officials at the department.

Therefore the key people at the state drugs department continue to be Ramakrishna Gandhi, MN Ramamurthy and MS Kustagi.

Meanwhile the pace of work has slowed down in the department. It is impossible for the department to streamline its operations and ensure an efficient system in place, averred the sources.

One of the three deputy drugs controllers, MS Kustagi will retire this year-end. The other two deputy drugs controllers Gandhi and Ramamurthy would be in-charge as licensing authorities till the post of additional drugs controller is filled-up. It is likely that one of the DDCs would be selected for the slot.

The State government is also to fill several vacancies in the department as it is experiencing an acute shortage of staff and shortfall of personnel at the headquarters at Bangalore and the district offices.

Another task by the State government is to ensure grant of funds to upgrade the department. Currently, there are only 12-15 computers, which are handed over by the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare when it bought up new systems. The old computers face continuous breakdowns, which is resulting inordinate delays of the various pending approvals.

The department, which receives budget to the tune of Rs.8.5 crore annually has to allocate almost 90 per cent of that towards staff salaries. In late 2003, it received an additional funding of Rs.10 lakh to modernise the drugs testing lab in 2003.