For faster and efficient delivery of services, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) has taken a strategic decision to conduct meetings of all the important statutory bodies and other advisory committees falling under the organisation at regular intervals from now. The agenda for all the meetings that are to be conducted till December 2012, has already been prepared and is expected to be displayed shortly on its official website for the public and stakeholders to access.

Though this the CDSCO plans to address all the important issues affecting the smooth functioning of the regulatory body from the grass root level in a time bound manner with more efficiently and transparency. From now on, all the important decision making bodies like the Drug Technical Advisory Board (DTAB), the Drugs Consultative Committee (DCC), New Drug Advisory Committee (NDAC) and other advisory committees under the CDSCO will have to meet regularly at Delhi to discuss on important issues.

Dr G N Singh the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) informed that understanding the changing dynamics of the country, the regulatory body of India have also decided to undergo major changes to facilitate and support the welfare of the public in general. “By adopting this proactive changes, we want to create an ideal drug regulatory system in the country that will help us in enforcing the regulations properly for which they were created. For this purpose we propose to conduct all the statutory and advisory meetings in a time scheduled manner, through which we aim to address and deliberate all important issues in a transparent way.”

Dr Singh pointed out that the immediate focus of the CDSCO is to ensure and develop the confidence of the public by promising them that all their issues will be dealt by the centre in a fixed time frame through a transparent and reliable system. For this purpose the CDSCO is also contemplating on uploading all the minutes of such meeting to be put in public domain for easy access.

He added, “This will not only lead to transparency in the system but also will ensure the growth of trust and reliability among the public on the functioning of the CDSCO. Our commitment is towards ensuring a safe and high quality healthcare system to all our citizens and we will do our level best to ensure the delivery of the same.”

The CDSCO has decided to embark on this mission to ensure better accessibility of high quality healthcare to all across the country. It also realises that the present system needs to be changed and tuned according to the current needs.

Till now all the statutory and advisory committee meeting used to be organised only once in six months or only as and when their was an urgent requirement for the same. But now with this, lot of important decisions and resolutions relating to the drug regulations in the country is expected to be done in a much more organised manner.