The West Bengal unit of the All India Chemists and Druggists Federation (AICDF) will be shortly approaching the state Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, for her immediate instruction to the state drugs control department to initiate action against certain manufacturing companies who violate all trade norms including Para 18 of the DPCO.

In the complaint to the chief minister, the companies mainly targeted are Zydus Cadila, Union Drug Ltd and Unisearch India Ltd, (a division of Unichem India ) said Joydeep Sarkar, secretary of WB-AICDF. He alleged that in spite of strong objections and repeated complaints made to the Director of Drugs Control, no action was initiated over this crucial issue.

In an interaction with Pharmabiz, the trade body leader said Zydus Cadila has suspended the supply of their entire products to its distributor, Hindustan Medical Syndicate, a wholesale medicine marketing agency in Kolkata, without any valid reason. Soon the distributor lodged a complaint to the drugs control department, consequently the company’s C & F A was called in for enquiry. Joydeep said the C & F A and the company prefer to drag the case without finding a solution in favour of the distributor.

He said the case was previously pending with the office of the health secretary and before the general election, it was forwarded to the then director of drugs control for departmental action. But due to the election process, the file remained untouched and the issue remained unsolved. When the new director assumed charge, the association members approached him with fresh complaints and he assured them that his office would solve the issue shortly by appointing a new team of inspectors to look into the case.

In reply to a question, Dr Chintamony Ghosh, the director of drugs controller said his department will step up action against those companies violating trade rules. He said a special cell under one ADC has been formed to look into the matter. “The department will not allow any company to indulge in malpractices or unlawful trade activities,” he assured.

About issue with Union Drug Ltd, Joydeep Sarkar alleged that it had stopped its supply of medicines to one distributor, A K Enterprises, Kolkata without citing any reason. A Kolkata based trade body, Pharmaceutical Traders’ Welfare Association of Bengal, had intervened into the issue and held discussion with the former director Dr R Chowdhari, but found no result. Now the company is least interested in solving the issues despite requests from trade bodies. The AICDF leader said he would apprise all these matters to the chief minister who herself is looking after the health portfolio also.

Regarding refusal of drugs by Unisearch India Ltd, he said the company has stopped supply of its entire range of products to A K Enterprises who is the only estranged agency out of the 250 stockists in the state. All other agencies are getting all the products from Unisearch and Unichem. AICDF has alleged that the name of AK Enterprises has been scrapped out from the list of distributors by the members of Bengal Chemists and Druggists Association, an affiliate of AIOCD, for not heeding to their diktats which are bypassing of trade norms.

He further alleged that BCDA has issued letters to all the manufacturing companies that new supplies should be made only to their members and not to other parties. The association will draw the attention of the Chief Minister into this unfair trade practices of companies and intimidations by the trade body, he said.

To a question, he replied that from 2005 onwards BCDA has been instructing pharmaceutical manufacturers to restrict supply of medicines to those distributors who are not dancing to their tunes. Once in the past, following a complaint, the department had acted well and the supplies were restored properly. But it did not last long, issues came up again. “Now new government has come, new director has come, so we are hopeful of an amicable settlement for all the pending problems,” Joydeep Sarkar told Pharmabiz.