The Maharashtra Food and Drugs Administration (FDA)'s  Nagpur Division has cancelled 364 drug licenses of retailers and 12 drug licenses of wholesalers in the revenue year 2013-14.  The licenses have been cancelled for non -compliance to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act on the basis of inspections of 4,190 retailers and 1,265 wholesalers in Nagpur Division last year.

According to official reports, FDA has gained an overall performance of 79.25 per cent in the previous year. There are 4,574 retail medical stores and 2,315 wholesale stores in Nagpur division.  Expressing satisfaction over the work of FDA Nagpur division, a state FDA official said that there has been a lot of awareness among common people and the department received about 3 to 4 complaints every day last year.

Besides this, the division has 120 manufacturing units. FDA has completed inspections of all these units in the last one year. FDA has given show cause notices to 23 units and canceled licenses of five units, six licenses were suspended, warnings were issued to five units while eight cases are pending.

Around 84 samples were declared sub standards on analysis by the government analysts out of the 521 samples of medicines collected by the FDA last year. Nine cases were filed on sub-standard medicines and eight cases were filed under other categories.

The FDA has also taken action against two firms for violation of the provisions of Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO) and seized stock of medicines worth Rs. 1,48,675 and registered 10 FIRs under Drugs and Magic Remedies Act. Two firms were also fined Rs. 1,20,000 for selling sub standard medicines and ayurvedic medicines worth Rs. 50,000 were also seized.