Common people suffered as all the medicine shops of the State kept their shutters down on Wednesday against the Union Government's proposed move to allow online sales of medicines. There are around 10,000 whole sale and retail chemist shops across the state and all of them remained closed on the strike call given by the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AICOD). The chemists assembled at the Doon hospital here on the day and engaged in a vehement opposition to the union government’s plan to allow online sales of the medicines. The members later submitted a memorandum to the district magistrate to express their opposition to the government’s move.
There are 1500 wholesale and retail shops of medicine in the state capital alone and all of them remained closed for the day till midnight. The patients bore the brunt of the strike as medicines were not available anywhere. It is learnt that business worth 50 crore of Rupees was affected by the one day strike.
The state President of the association, T R Panthri said that move will hit their business very hard. He claimed that the state government would lose revenue worth Rs 2.5 crore in VAT annually if the government goes ahead with the plan. “How the quality of medicine would be monitored onlineIJ,” questioned Panthri.
The district President of the wholesale chemist association, Manish Nanda said that the small businessmen would be severely affected by the move. He said the chances of youth falling prey to the menace of drugs are real with the online sales with no monitoring of psychotropic drugs (those sold under N schedule). Nanda said that as of now, such drugs are sold only after the patients present the prescription slip and claimed that spurious drugs would also find an easy access in the market via E business. He claimed that the strike was a complete success in the state.