In order to enforce effective compliance of drugs and medical device rules, Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) has opened a new office at Ahmedabad on the West of Sabarmati river front which will be headed by assistant commissioner (Drugs) assisted by a team of 35 senior drug inspectors including drug inspectors and assistant drug inspector.

As of today, there are 26 district offices out of 33 districts in Gujarat with 26 assistant commissioners, 4 joint commissioners, 5 deputy commissioners, 49 senior drug inspectors and 89 drug inspectors with FDCA Commissioner at the helm of affairs.

The state regulator had earlier recruited a total of 42 drug control officers with opening of a new district office at Rajkot in the Saurashtra region headed by an assistant commissioner for better enforcement of drug laws in the state.

Rajkot is one of the biggest in the seven districts of Saurashtra region. There are in total three testing laboratories in the state, two dedicated food testing laboratories in Rajkot and Bhuj respectively and one state of the art food and drug testing laboratory at Vadodara. Another one is likely to come up at Patan for which building has already been constructed and will soon start with help from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO). The Centre will bear 75 per cent of the cost as part of lab upgradation programme and the rest 25 per cent will be borne by the state government.  

The existing food and drug testing laboratory in Vadodara has the capacity to test 7,500 drug samples annually, of which the lab currently tests around 6,000 to 6,500 samples in a year. With this capacity building measure, the new drug testing lab will be able to augment its capacity of drug testing and sampling to ensure access to safe drugs across the state.

Meanwhile, Gujarat government has also formed a committee to oversee recruitment of manpower for the state National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) cell for effective detection of ceiling price violations in drugs and devices. A total of seven personnel including a scientific officer will be deputed for the purpose of collection of data on price violations in the state based on the much awaited financial support from the Central government.