Akin to the national trade body, All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), a national level organisation exclusively for the pharma wholesalers/distributors is likely to be formed soon with headquarters either in Chennai or in New Delhi.

According to information, preliminary work for setting up the organisation is progressing in north India and it is expected to get good support from the wholesalers/distributors in south India. It is expected that once the organisation is formed, the wholesalers who are now members of AIOCD will sever their ties with that organisation and become members of the soon-to-be-formed wholesalers’ association.

Accordingly, the membership strength of AIOCD, which claims a membership of around 7 lakhs, is likely to be reduced to 70 percentage of what it is today. Currently, most of the wholesalers in the country are members of the AIOCD, said a wholesale dealer who is taking the initiative to form the parallel organisation by utilising his vast contact and influence among the pharma traders in the country.

The major reason for forming a new organisation is that the AIOCD takes care of the issues of retail chemists only and the problems of the distributors/wholesalers remain unsettled in most of the states. Secondly, the non-pharmacist wholesale dealers who are doing business for several years are a worried lot now because of the report that the government is contemplating to amend the Drugs and Cosmetics Act to make only registered pharmacists eligible for drug sale licences, both wholesale and retail.

Although there is one organisation for distributors, AICDF, which has presence in West Bengal, New Delhi, UP, Kerala and in some other places, it does not have an organised set up and unity to take up their business problems with the authorities. Moreover, the wholesalers’ community, without an identity of their own, is scattered in many places even without mutual contact. They take membership from the regional committees of the AIOCD branches and follow the dictates of the retail captains, said the initiator of the new association in anonymity.

“We need an association of our own. There are approximately two lakh and twenty thousand wholesale licence holders in India. Ninety percentage of them are having membership with AIOCD and out of the rest ten per cent, a few are members of AICDF and the remaining number of dealers have no membership with any organisation. Once the organisation comes into effect, one member cannot hold a position in the association of the chemists and druggists. We are starting the elementary work in Kerala where a separate organisation for pharmaceutical distributors has already been registered and mobilisation is continuing,” he said.

In Tamil Nadu, the state branch of the All India Chemists and Distributors Federation (AICDF), the distributors body formed by Kailash Gupta and Joydeep Sarkar, has been working for the last seven years under the name, Tamil Nadu Pharmaceutical Distributors Federation (TNPDA). Several retail chemists are also members of TNPDA. Similarly, a good number of wholesale dealers are associating with TNCDA, expressing solidarity with AIOCD and J. S. Shinde. However, the upcoming trade body of wholesalers and distributors is likely to associate with AICDF and its various state branches forcing a direct split in the AIOCD in the national level.

In Kerala, there is one strong organisation for wholesalers, Alliance of Pharmaceutical Traders (APT), Kerala. It takes up issues of the wholesale distributors and has presence in almost all districts. The organisation is becoming stronger in the state due to the problems and the oft-repeated court cases in the AKCDA. So, it is probable that APT Kerala will become a strong supporter for the forthcoming national body of pharma wholesalers.