The Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA)  recently installed and launched an SMS alert system for pharma manufacturers in the state which will enable them to get the status of their on-line application instantly. This latest up-gradation is a part of the ongoing efforts taken by the state government to make its e-governance programme more stronger and industry friendly.

This technological up-gradation has been aimed specifically to benefit the pharma manufacturers in the state, as all the applicants will now be able to get timely intimation on their application status enabling them to  plan their production schedule accordingly.

Gujarat FDCA is the only regulatory authority in the country to have launched this unique technique for the benefit of the industry as of now. According to Dr Hemant G Koshia, commissioner, Gujarat FDCA, “The process of on-line application has already been implemented in the state from some time now, which has helped in reducing lot of paperwork and other bureaucratic workload. However, with this inclusion the greatest beneficiaries will be the industry as they will be able to save lot of time and manpower.”

Prior to the launch, once the product was submitted on-line, usually it took some time for the applicants to get the information on whether their products got approved or rejected,  based on which the applicants had to take further steps. However, now once their application got approved, manufactures will be able start the scheduling of the products in advance which may lead to commercial production and manufacturing of drugs at the latest from the time of approval.

Explaining the process, Dr Koshia informed that the up-gradation  allows the manufacturers to get an instant SMS alert on the status of their application and act accordingly without waiting for the hard copy to take action. “As soon as a product is approved or rejected on-line, the system will automatically send an instant SMS alert to the manufacturers mobile number which the applicants had used while submitting the on-line application. Through this we will be able to achieve better transparency in the way things are being conducted with faster results,” he added.

Every month the Gujarat FDCA receives around 15,000 additional product licence for approval which amounts to almost 70 plus applications every day.

The up-gradation is being done by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).