The Andhra Pradesh Drug Control Administration (APDCA) in the state has seized spurious drugs worth Rs.1.5 crore during the past 6 months since the new Director General B L Meena had taken charge.
The APDCA has filed nearly about 35 cases in the court against the manufacturers and distributors of spurious and unlicensed drugs in the state. Among drugs seized under various types of violations, the spurious drugs alone accounted to Rs.70 lakhs during the past 6 months.
Apart from conducting regular inspections of manufacturing sites, the DCA is also conducting regular inspection drives of drug stores and retail medical shops in the state. Out of 51049 inspections conducted during 2012-13 the drug control authorities have suspended 3527 sales licenses and cancelled about 37 manufacturing licenses in the state.
Among the 6127 samples analyzed by the drug inspectors, the DCA has declared about 78 drug samples of not of standard quality in the past one year. Taking stern action against faulty product manufacturers, so far the DCA has issued 6 stop production orders and cases against the violators.
While talking to Pharmabiz about various measures being taken to streamline the process of DCA, Dr B L Meena, DG, APDCA said, “We are in the process of streamlining and reorganizing the functioning of the drug control administration in the state. We want to make the entire administration more accountable and transparent and give no scope for any kind of corruption. We are constantly interacting with all stake holders and planning to expedite licensing and other client services as per the time frame. To ensure quality and accountability we are conducting review meetings periodically and accordingly taking necessary action”.
To strengthen the human resource capacity of drug controller in Andhra Pradesh, the drug controller department in the state had inducted 56 new drug inspectors during the past one year. “In order to improve the skills and quality among the new recruits we are providing 8 weeks of training to new inspectors at Marri Chenn Reddy Institute. The inspectors are exposed to testing labs and court proceedings to have better understanding of the ground realities,” elaborated B L Meena while briefing on their activities about capacity building and skill development among the inspectors.
Very soon the APDCA is going to launch its much awaited website which has been delayed since long. “In the next 4-5 days the drug control department will launch its new website where it will receive online applications for licenses and it will ensure speeding up of licensing as it involves minimum paper work. As all the security and audit clearances of all the online modules are verified we are ready with the website in the next 4-5 days. With this it will not only have minimal official to client interaction but also ensure fast and transparent processing of licenses without any scope for corruption,” added another senior official.
Ultimately the APDCA is aiming see that there is no scope for the fraudulent manufacturers and distributors of spurious drugs in the state and at the same time ensure genuine law abiding manufacturers are not harassed.