Health ministry has appointed agency and awarded it the contract to procure equipment for setting up mini drug testing labs at JNPT, Nhava Sheva and Mumbai Airport to enhance capability for detecting spurious  medicines exported from and imported into the country.

Government will also set up mini-lab at Ahmedabad airport to analyse and detect spurious medicines which are ready to be exported at the airport in less than 40 seconds time without any manual intervention.

Other five labs would come up at Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Chennai. Government is also keen on expanding CDSCO’s capacity by 2020 by adding a total of 20 mini drug-testing labs at the port offices of the drug regulator.

“After due process of tendering, authorised agency has been appointed to procure instruments and equipment for setting up mini drug testing labs at the ports and some are in the process of getting installed,” according to deputy drugs controller of India Dr K Bangarurajan.

These labs will be equipped with analytical modalities like AAS, GC, HPLC, IR and NIRS among others for effective detection, analysis and reporting on drug quality.

Estimated to cost around Rs. 25 crore, the mini-lab at Ahmedabad airport will be manned by a team of nine technical personnel led by a senior scientific officer. To ensure quality of drugs supplied to over 200 countries from India, CDSCO is also in the process of training its drug inspectors on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) .

Central government has allocated Rs. 900 crore for enhancing manpower and capacities of mini labs at port offices and mobile labs at CDSCO level. A total of additional 1,195 posts were also sanctioned for the upgradation of manpower and labs under the 12th five year plan.

Currently, there are seven drug-testing labs in the country in Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Chandigarh and Kasauli and state drugs testing labs at Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra with an autonomous lab at Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), Ghaziabad for drug testing and analysis.