After a long period of 30 years, a newly elected state pharmacy council has been constituted in the state of Assam.  Munin Chandra Deka, a veteran regulator with expertise in enforcement and experience as registrar of state pharmacy council, has been elected as president of the council.

The last election to Assam Pharmacy Council (APC) was held in 1987. After that the APC was functioning under a nominated council (by the government) under section 19 A (a) of the pharmacy act.

The newly constituted council will take charge next month after notification of formation of the council by the government in the state gazette next week, it is learnt.

In a telephonic interview with Pharmabiz, the newly elected president MC Deka said cleansing the profession of pharmacy in the state is the priority area of activity. Taking Pharmacy Practice Regulations -2015 as a strong tool to weed out quacks from pharmacy profession, the elected body of the council will approach the government with a request to implement all provisions in the PPR properly in Assam.

“The Council’s first priority is to purify the pharmacy profession in the community set up, for which all fake pharmacists need to be removed from the register of the council. Secondly, focus will be given for conducting refresher courses and continuous pharmacy education (CPE) programmes to all registered and working pharmacists”, he said.

With respect to PPR, he said steps will be taken for appointing pharmacy inspectors in every district to enforce Pharmacy Act parallel with the enforcement of Drugs and Cosmetics Act by the regulatory department.

In Assam, more than 2000 unqualified persons got registered with the pharmacy council upto 2008 as per Section 32 (b) of the Pharmacy Act. They have no pharmacy educational background, but after producing certificates from Nagaland, Manipur and nearby states, got registration with the council before 2008. Registrations of all such persons will be removed from the state register under Section 36 of the Act. Subsequently, their drug licences will be cancelled by the drugs control department, said Deka.

Section 32 (b) gives special provisions for registration of displaced persons and repatriates who were carrying on business or profession of pharmacy as their principal means of livelihood in any country outside India for a total period of not less than five years from a date prior to the date of application for registration. In Assam there are so many repatriates from Bangladesh running pharmacies, said the president.

The council is empowered to remove the registration of a person under section 36 of the Pharmacy Act.

The first sitting of the elected and nominated council members was held on February 23 this year and M C Deka was elected president of the APC. Samiran Sharma is the vice-president and Bhuban Chandra Das is the government appointed Registrar.

M C Deka was in the drugs control department of Assam for more than 30 years and after retirement, he served as the Registrar of the APC for five years from 2008. When he became the Registrar of the council, he stopped registrations of the unqualified people. For the last ten years, registrations are done only for pharmacy qualified people.

Although the council was constituted in February this year, the election to the APC was held in 2016, after a long gap of 29 years. After 1987, no election was held to the council, but was functioning under a nominated council by the government.

Welcoming the formation of the state pharmacy council, Sofiur Rehmankhan, president of Assam Registered Pharmacists Association (ARPA), said the knowledge and expertise of M C Deka will be useful and favorable for enhancing the pharmacy profession in Assam into higher levels. He wanted the state government to immediately notify the formation of the council. Although, he contested, he could not win the election.  ARPA has no member in the new council.

Sofiur said so many fake pharmacists are still running medical shops in cities and villages without even the minimum qualifications. 1n 1980s and 1990s, taking note of shortage of qualified persons, the state drugs control department had issued Restricted Pharmacy Licenses (RPL) to retail drug stores. The situation has changed today and there is sufficient number of qualified pharmacists in the state.