The Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) based on testing of 11,071 samples found 535 not-of- standard quality (NSQ) drugs in the year 2016 -17. This was accomplished through its ongoing random sampling surveys at retail and wholesale stores, hospitals and manufacturing sites consolidated on an yearly basis. Last year, 365 NSQ samples were registered based on testing of 7,500 drug samples.

Gujarat has been leading in the country in terms of collection and analysis of drug samples as part of its ongoing crackdown on spurious and NSQ drugs through its post-marketing surveillance programme. This is followed by states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Himanchal Pradesh.

Official figures also indicate that Gujarat FDCA officers collected 13,540 samples in 2015-16 and 8632 samples in 2016-17. A dedicated team of 100 Gujarat FDCA inspectors have been given a target to collect samples which is then sent to Vadodara based lab for analysis manned by a team of 250 lab personnel.

State FDAs from across the country have also been mandated to do the random sampling surveys for the past several years based on the guidelines stipulated in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. Routine sampling and tests of drugs by CDSCO usually check the quality of drugs using parameters like dissolution and assay.

The FDCA's Vadodara based drug testing lab had also tested the maximum number of 6,025 drug samples as part of a pan India spurious drugs survey which concluded last year to assess for the first time complete testing of NSQ drugs as per Indian pharmacopoeia and other pharmacopoeias.

This was followed by Central Drug Testing Lab (CDTL) Hyderabad which tested 5,461samples, CDTL Mumbai which tested 5,418 samples, CDTL Chennai which tested 5,257samples, CDTL Bengaluru which tested 2,033 samples and Maharashtra which tested 186 samples.

Done at an estimated cost of Rs. 8.5 crore, the Union health ministry had entrusted the job of National Drugs Survey in July 28, 2014 to Noida based National Institute of Biologicals (NIB) which compiled it in the form of around 400 pages of well documented evidence based study based on the pan-India sampled field data to the tune of 48,000 samples.