Govt orders inquiry in spurious drugs, to amend law, set up Authorit

New Delhi, Jul 20 (UNI) Concerned over the menace of spurious drugs in the country, the Health Ministry has instituted an inquiry and decided to amend the law and set up a Regulatory Authority to give stringent punishment to those indulging in manufacture and trade of fake drugs.

Talking to reporters here, Dr Ramadoss said the act would be amended to provide life imprisonment and hefty fines to those manufacturing and trading fake drugs. The new act would be put before Parliament in the next session.

He said the previous health minister Sushma Swaraj had even suggested death punishment in case of spurious drugs leading to death of people. However, the cabinet after deliberation felt that the death punishment would be too harsh.

He said to strictly enforce the act, a new Drug Regulatory Authority would be set up on the lines of TRAI. He said that like the FDA of the United States, the new Authority would be given a lot of teeth, resources and manpower to check any fake or spurious drugs in the country.

The world class national level Regulatory Authority would go a long way in monitoring and enforcing to check spurious drug sales in the country.

Describing spread of fake drugs as ''unfortunate'', Dr Ramadoss said they were difficult to detect as most of them were clandestine operations and had deep roots and linkages.

Moreover, most of the state governments lacked adequate manpower or resources to enforce the existing acts to check the menace. Some state governments had amended their act, but others also had to do it. he added.

Though the Health Minister said one to two per cent drugs in India were spurious, independent reports suggested that one third of drugs were spurious.

UNI