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New authority mooted to tackle spurious drugs |
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Written by BUSINESS LINE
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Friday, 18 July 2003 |
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 New authority mooted to tackle spurious drugs Our Bureau New Delhi , July 17 A FIVE-PRONGED approach including setting up an independent National Drug Authority and attacking the drug distribution chain was suggested by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to tackle the spurious drugs issue.
Participating in a meeting on Thursday with the Expert Committee on Spurious Drugs, set up the Union Health Ministry and chaired by Dr R.A. Mashelkar, CII said that severe punishment, a strong regulatory body and awareness, besides setting up a drug authority and tightening of distribution networks, could help in getting a handle on the problem. Spurious drugs result in a loss of over Rs 4,000 crore to the industry and the technical expertise that goes into these spurious products makes it difficult for manufacturers and regulators to identify counterfeits, a CII communiqué said. "CII recommended that manufacturing of spurious drugs be declared a cognisable offence," Mr Harinder Sikka, senior representative with Nicholas Piramal India Ltd, who is also on the CII Task Force for spurious drugs, told Business Line. At present, it is a bailable offence and the Government needs to take concrete steps to deem it as a criminal offence, with far reaching implications for the offender, the industry forum said. The encouragement to commit such crimes comes from the relative certainty of getting away with it, they observed. Further, they point out, there is an urgent need to put in place an autonomous national authority on spurious drugs, which could be empowered to go the whole hog from gathering intelligence to conducting raids. |