With only five senior drug inspectors working against the sanctioned strength of 19 and a vacuum of two unfilled number of deputy director posts and four assistant director posts, the Tamil Nadu Drugs Control Administration (TN DCA) is struggling with acute staff shortage.

The present number of drug inspectors is only 135 as against a requirement of 210 as per Hathi Committee report of 1975. The sanctioned strength of drugs inspectors is only 146, eleven posts not filled up so far.

According to sources close to the department, the acute shortage in various levels of the department remains a hurdle in the process of enforcing the drugs and cosmetics act and various other acts and rules related to drugs and pharmacy.

The chief regulator of the state, M Adul Khadar, who is actually an officer in the rank of joint director, but assigned with the post of ‘director-in-charge, told Pharmabiz that the government is aggressively engaged in the process of filling up the vacant posts and all the sanctioned posts will be filled up soon. He said the top level posts are to be filled up on promotion basis.

However, the allegation is that this dearth of key senior officials, especially senior drug inspectors who are supposed to inspect the manufacturing companies, often helps the companies to indulge in violations and that may remain unnoticed forever. The duty of a senior drug inspector is to look after manufacturing of drugs, operations of blood banks and hospitals. But due to the staff crunch, no proper monitoring is held anywhere.

Presently, the overall situation in the department is grim as all the officers, from top to bottom, are over-burdened, and all the 14 zonal offices under assistant director of drugs controls (ADCs) are struggling hard for want of sufficient regulatory staffs. Even the large area size of the zones also puts the officers in trouble and hinders proper monitoring and enforcement of the act.

For example, take the case of Coimbatore zone which consists of Coimbatore, Nilgiris, Erodu and Tirupur districts. They are all big districts and coming under one zone. The ADC is unable to monitor all these districts properly.

Similarly, the Salem zone is clustered with Salem, Namakkal, Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts and needs bifurcation, sources said.

Kadalur and Vizhuppuram are big districts which are attached to Trichy zone. It consists of six districts. All the 14 zones are facing problems due to staff shortage and area distance. In certain zones, one ADC has to look after six districts.

M Rajendran, former director of TN DCA said the  regulatory staffs in the drugs control administration is supposed mainly to take care of enforcement of drugs and cosmetics act & rules,  besides they have to concentrate on DMROA, DPCO, NDPS Act and on Cosmetics. As per Hathi committee report of 1975, one post of drug inspector is needed for every 200 retail shops and one senior level drug inspector is required for every 25 manufacturing units. As per this norm, a total of 500 drugs inspectors must be appointed in Tamil Nadu where there are 42000 retail shops and 450 manufacturing companies are working.

In addition to this, all over Tamil Nadu the successfully operating wholesalers are around 7000. For monitoring their operations alone, 35 senior drugs inspectors must be appointed. For inspecting 400 blood banks and blood storage centres, 15 drug inspectors are required if the norm of one inspector for every 25 blood bank has to be complied. The number of cosmetics manufacturing units are around 200, for which 10 regulators are required, said Rajendran.