The Cuddalore district president of the Tamil Nadu Pharmacist Awareness Organization (TNPAO) has lodged a complaint with the state drugs control administration that pharmacy business in the whole area of the district is carried out by unqualified persons and no pharmacy shop is following the drug acts in the district.

The complaint says that all the medical shops are violating the drugs and cosmetics act and Indian pharmacy act in the district.

V Veeramani, the TNPAO activist in Cuddalore, said in his complaint to the state director of drugs controller that neither the community pharmacies nor the hospital pharmacies have qualified pharmacists, and the drugs are dispensed through the shops by unqualified persons. According to him, the wholesale dealers are also operating without qualified and registered pharmacists in their shops.

Briefing Pharmabiz about the unlawful situation in the pharmacy sector in Cuddalore, Veeramani said 95% of the medical stores are run by non-matriculates. The medical shop owners do not appoint qualified pharmacists in the shops, and engage unqualified persons to run their business. The situation affects the health of the people, and no proper dispensing of medicines is happened anywhere in the district.

Commenting on the complaint, S. Sivabalan, the director of drugs control administration in Tamil Nadu, said strict legal action will be taken against any medical shop, whether it is community pharmacy or hospital pharmacy, which is run without registered pharmacists. He said the complaint given by TNPAO has been forwarded to the office of the ADC at Trichy zone for immediate investigation and action.

Sivabalan added that the department had initiated legal action against 300 medial shops last year, and 50 out of them were from Cuddalore.

According to official sources, following the complaint by TNPAO, drug inspectors from Chidambaram visited various areas in the district and conduced investigations in various pharmacies. They said, generally fresh licenses are granted and renewed only when the registered pharmacists are employed as qualified persons to supervise and conduct sale of drugs at the medical shops. Whenever sale of scheduled drugs without prescription or sale of drugs on prescription without the supervision of registered pharmacists is noticed, legal action will be initiated against such shops as per D&C Act and Rules.

In view of the complaint received from Cuddalore, all the drugs inspectors in the district have been alerted and surprise inspections are going on in all the areas. According to the officials, they could not find out the office of the Cuddalore district committee of the TNPAO, from where the complaint was originated.

Veeramani, the district president of TNPAO, said even when a complaint is lodged with the concerned drug inspectors or the ADC in Cuddalore, no action will be taken on it, hence he has forwarded his complaint to the state director’s office.