In a bid to spruce up the drug control administration and strengthen the regulatory mechanism in the state, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to appoint 90 new drug inspectors and also 23 junior analysts in the drug testing laboratory (DTL) in the state.

These appointments will be made in about two months time, for which the government has published a select list of new recruits.

Shortage of field enforcement officials had projected a weak image of the state’s regulatory mechanism in the last few years, when the state experienced the menace of expired drugs. The issue was a cause of concern for the government as it could not effectively regulate the proliferation of expired drugs due to lack of staff strength. The present appointment of 90 drug inspectors assumes significance in the wake of the expired drug issue. The last recruitment was made in 2010 when 23 drug inspectors were posted.

Besides appointing drug inspectors, the government has also decided to appoint 23 junior analysts in the drug testing lab, which has at present the strength of 13 analysts.

While briefing about the new development, the state director of drugs control, J Selvaraju said the new recruits will be given training for 15 days at the head office in Chennai, afterwards they will be sent for site inspections in manufacturing units, blood banks, commercial labs and retail shops. Lessons on Drugs and Cosmetics Act (D&C Act), Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO), Drugs & Magic Remedies (objectionable) Act, NDPS Act, Evidence Act, RTI, Medical Devices etc will be included in the training programme.

The trainers will include legal experts, police officials, NIB officials, experts in blood banks and GMP and GLP experts.

“Previously there were 74 sanctioned posts of DIs, out of which 48 posts were filled up and 26 were lying vacant. In 2010 and in 2011 another posts of 72 drugs inspectors were sanctioned and the vacancies rose to 98. Now the test and interview were held for 90 posts and the result was published recently. With the appointment of these inspectors, the number of field inspectors will increase to 138. In another three-four months period, the entire process of appointment will be completed,” he explained to this reporter.

Regarding strengthening of DTL, the drugs controller said the government has sanctioned Rs.14 crore for the purpose. State-of-the-art equipment like Gas Chromatography (GC), High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), IR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry (MS) etc. for testing complex drugs will be bought for the laboratory. He said while sprucing up the operations of the lab, the delay in getting results can be reduced to a large extent.

Due to the lack of sufficient number of technical staff and analysts, there have been complaints of delay in getting test reports from the state laboratory. There was allegation that the drug inspectors were collecting samples of long expiry drugs only. If short expiry samples are taken and found in the lab test as ‘not of standard quality’, the department will not get sufficient time to hold investigation and further action. Now with the posting of 23 analysts, the operation in the DTL can be speeded up, it is hoped.

According to sources, the appointment of new drug inspectors will help reduce the workload of other field staff and will open promotional avenues for drug inspectors who had failed to get any promotion despite putting in several years of service. It is worth mentioning that there are more than 45,000 retail outlets and 550 manufacturing units in all over Tamil Nadu and inspections are being carried out in all the 32 districts by 48 drug inspectors.