The Government is planning large scale capacity building of drug testing in the country during the 12th Plan including upgradation of existing labs, setting up of new labs, setting up of mini labs at ports of entry, commissioning of mobile labs, special labs for medical devices and cosmetics.

Disclosing this in the Parliament recently, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said the Government has given special attention to strengthening and upgrading the infrastructure of States drug regulatory system which plays major role in enforcement of provisions of the Drugs & Cosmetics (D&C) Act and hence in checking the problem of spurious drugs.

“A new Centrally Sponsored Scheme to help them during the 12th Five Year Plan has already been envisaged. The scheme includes strengthening of both the physical infrastructure and human resources. A new budget line has been opened and an initial token provision of Rs.2 crores has been made in 2012-13 budget,” he said.

Referring to the spurious drugs, he said the media and some organisations were been projecting the problem of spurious drugs in the country in a manner which does not provide a balanced perspective and has, therefore, caused serious apprehensions. “These are unsubstantiated reports. For example, on the basis of an alleged WHO report, the media frequently reports that 35 per cent of fake drugs produced in the world come from India. However, when enquired, the WHO has denied its authenticity. A survey conducted by the Government in 2009 to assess the extent of spurious drugs revealed that the extent of drugs found spurious was 0.046 per cent only. ASSOCHAM’s report is not based on substantiated facts. The Government has taken a number of measures to check the problem of spurious and adulterated drugs in the country in the past in this regard and is also active in this direction,” he said.

Two Sub-zones of CDSCO (Hyderabad and Ahmedabad) have been upgraded to full zones and three new sub-zones (Bangalore, Chandigarh and Jammu) have been created to effectively cover the entire country under the active supervision of the CDSCO. The Central Drugs Testing Laboratories have been strengthened with new sophisticated testing equipments. A new laboratory at Hyderabad has been constructed, he said, while listing out the steps taken by the Government.

“The scheme of regular overseas Inspection of manufacturing facilities situated abroad has been initiated to ensure proper compliance of manufacturing facilities before registering them for Import of Drugs from overseas. Two such inspections in China have already been completed,” he said.