The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) will soon set up three more sub-zonal offices at Goa, Indore and Guwahati.  Besides, another pharma zone is being set up at New Delhi airport and it has created new sub-zonal offices at Jammu, Chandigarh, and Bangaluru.

According to the annual report released by the Health Ministry listing the achievements of the CDSCO, it has opened offices for zonal/laboratories at Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chandigarh and established pharma zones at Hyderabad Airport, during year of 2010.  It has also initiated steps to set up three more sub-zonal offices at Goa, Indore and Guwahati, the report said.

More than 100 import licenses were cancelled for violations of conditions of licence and the CDSCO conducted raids along with CBI in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, to unearth spurious drugs.  The government also introduced “whistle blower policy” to motivate the public and provide information to the regulators on movement of spurious drugs, it said. The authorities also issued prosecution orders for the manufacture of substandard drugs during the year, besides amending the Drugs and Cosmetics Act for enhancing penal provisions for manufacturing and sale of spurious drugs.

Another major measure of the year was the implementation of registration process for import of cosmetics, which came into effect from April. The DCGI office banned harmful drugs like rosiglitazone and initiated inspection of clinical trial centres. The system of registration of clinical trials was also made mandatory.

The DCGI also introduced pharmacovigillance programme at 20 centres in different parts of the country to ensure compliance to Schedule Y requirements. The office of CDSCO has initiated inspection of pharmaceutical firms for import registration of drugs, it said.

Schedule M (GMP compliant) plant is being constructed at CRI, Kasauli.  The civil construction of the plant is over and equipments and machinery would be installed by March 2011.  The unit will start its trial thereafter, the statement said.

“The four departments viz Deptt of Health and Family Welfare, Ayush, Health Research and AIDS Control under the Ministry  have been working towards the objective of achieving higher standards of health for general population.  In line with this objective, comprehensive steps – be it the use of bivalent polio vaccine leading to lowest ever polio transmission levels; overall reduction in adult HIV prevalence; launching a Sports Injury Centre or the first ever Organ Donation Day in India; augmenting infrastructure with Railways’ MoU; initiating National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly or voicing India’s views at International fora; significant steps have been taken by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare during the calendar year of 2010,” the report said.