Lok Sabha to take up two bills to curb menance of spurious drugs

New Delhi, Aug 14 (UNI) Reluctantly admitting that sale of spurious drugs in India is more a criminal activity than a social evil, Union Health Minister Dr Ambumani Ramadoss today said two bills will be taken up by Parliament to check the menace.

To questions by members of the BJP, CPI(M) and BJD, the Minister in his written reply to a calling attention motion on the issue in Lok Sabha, said the amendment of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 would make offence of manufacture and sale of spurious drugs non-bailable, and provide for life term for the offence. In the event of conviction under the amended act, the fine will be enhanced from Rs 10,000 to Rs one lakh. The second legislation would be the creation of a Central Drug Authority on the pattern of Federal Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States, he added.

While admitting that manufacture, sale and distribution of spurious drugs is a problem, Dr Ramadoss, however, disputed members' claim that it constituted 30 to 40 per cent of the total drug sale in the country. Mr Basudeb Acharia of CPI(M) made this claim, alleging spurious drugs are also supplied to government hospitals.

The Marxist member further claimed that 30 per cent of drugs and medicines imported by India were also spurious.

Quoting the World Health Organisation (WHO), Mr Braja Kishore Tripathy (BJD) said 8 to 10 per cent of drugs sold in the country are fake, alleging one-fourth of drug exports from India to Eurpean Union (EU) are also spurious. However, the Minister strongly refuted the charge, saying the government has written communication from the WHO denying having issued any such statement. EU, he added, however, did not reply to three communications sent by the government.

Dr Ramadoss said India is the world's fourth largest producer of drugs and exported drugs worth Rs 23,000 crore and 105 of Indian drugs have been approved by United States' FDA. However, he agreed with Dr Laxminarayan Pandey (BJP) that the modus operandi employed by a manufacturer was to get license for a drug but manufacture on the sly such drugs which have large market. Such clandestine operations by manfacturers cannot be detected alone by the Central government, he said, adding state governments, too, have to pitch in to curb the menance as the subject is on concurrent list.

The Minister underlined the need to increase national sampling of drugs from 40,000 to 1,00,000 per year as it would act as a good deterrence to manufacture of spurious drugs. Dr Ramadoss said of the 40,000 samples tested every year, the incidence of spurious drugs was found to be just between 0.183 to 0.29 per cent in the last three years.

UNI