With a view to counter the threat arising from improper disposal of raw materials, the Gujarat Food & Drugs Control Administration (FDCA) has asked the stakeholders to take precautions while discarding raw materials. The regulator said that the companies should be very cautious especially while dealing with scrap vendors, with proper background check and timely investigation as required under the good manufacturing practices to ensure that the disposed materials are not reused by them.

Expired, recalled or discarded raw materials from pharma, cosmetics or food companies are supposed to be destroyed thoroughly, so that they can no longer be re-used for commercial purposes.  However, in the recent times there have been shocking incidents wherein individuals have been mis-utilising these raw materials by re-using them on a wide scale.

The warning from the FDCA comes in the wake of recent raid carried out by the officials in Surat on a tip off against planned operations of selling discarded spurious cosmetics. During the raid FDCA officials found the culprit, a resident of Surat, guilty of packaging and selling huge quantity of spurious Fair & Lovely cream, a brand of Hindustan Uniliver (HUL) to unsuspecting consumers across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

During the investigation it was found that the wrongdoer was buying the discarded raw materials from the scrap vendors and re-packaging the raw material through the same packaging company supplying to HUL. The modus operandi used by the culprit was foolproof and thus made detection much more difficult for the regulators, informed Dr Dr HG Koshia, commissioner of Gujarat FDCA.

He informed that his team has already seized products worth Rs.26 lakh from four places, which includes 10,000 plus ready to sale Fair & Lovely cream tubes, two full drums containing 300 kilograms of cream each, huge quantity of packaging materials, cream fillers, labels etc. It is understood that the perpetrator used to get the scrap material from multiple vendors and base his operations based on the same.

The Gujarat FDCA has already booked the person on two grounds i.e. for manufacturing counterfeit and spurious products and for flouting section 18 (c) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act (D&C Act) which basically deals with manufacturing without license. Under the law, the person will have to undergo three years imprisonment with fine.

While legal proceedings have already started against the main accused, investigation is going on to find the level of involvement of the scrap vendors, packaging company and even HUL as well, to find whether there was any lapse on their behalf.

“Companies should ensure that there is no lapse on their side while discarding unwanted raw material, to avoid such unfortunate incidents. It becomes a part of their responsibility to ensure that they chose a reliable source for such an important work. Whenever there is a recall or left out material it should be judiciously discarded so that it cannot be reused at any time. Such products should not be allowed to enter the market as it can affect not only the companies' reputation but also the consumers' health and wellbeing as well,” cautioned Dr Koshia.