In a major initiative to unearth violation of DPCO, the central zone office of the Kerala drugs control department has started inspection of all the retail shops in Ernakulam district to find out the manufacturing companies which are engaged in the malpractice of overcharging consumers for essential and other drugs.

The action is taken following the recent announcement of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) that a number of drug makers are charging higher rates on several medicines including essential drugs by violating Drug Price Control Order (DPCO). The national drug price regulator had reported that a total of Rs.2362 crore has been overcharged by major manufacturing companies in the past few years.

In Kerala, the drug regulators in the central zone had reported similar cases of violations after a thorough inspection in Ernakulam district last month. But most of the violations were on dietary supplements and the companies approached the court and got stay order. Assistant drugs controller MR Pradip said he took 60 cases, but all of them got stayed by the court later. But he added that the present inspection team is checking violations of DPCO and if any found, it will be reported to the NPPA.

While explaining the possible violations, the ADC said the 74 controlled category molecules are bulk drugs, but only 47 are used for manufacturing formulations. Currently, the drug makers manufacture 157 formulations out of these 47 controlled category drugs.

“We will identify the product and company and find out the variation in the MRP and the price fixed by the NPPA. Once the violations are found we will report the concerned authority. They will collect the amount overcharged from the consumers. Majority of the violators are major companies. This is actually a fraud done by the drug makers,” he told Pharmabiz.

He said NPPA has fixed price for each product and published it in the website. The inspection team will verify the prices with the help of web page and what is on MRP.

The Kerala Chemists & Druggists Association leader Antony Tharian said the marketers or the pharmacy owners are unaware of this cheat by the pharma companies. A number of DPCO violations are held on various products and all of them are not always reported to the national regulator.

Quoting NPPA report Antony Tharian said the drug maker Cipla has overcharged consumers on several essential medicines whose prices were fixed by the national regulator. According to him, the report says that an amount of over Rs.1,600 crore is pending against Cipla for the alleged overcharging. He said several leading manufacturing companies in India are violating DPCO and no action is taken against them by the authorities.