To check the sale of psychotropic drugs and the compliance of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, Punjab Food and Drug Commissionerate has conducted state-wide raids seizing drugs worth Rs 4.5 crore in as many as 13,500 raids in 17 months, suspending 1414 licences.
Giving a rundown into the activities of the Commissionerate’s Drug Administration wing, the state FDA commissioner Kahan Singh Pannu said that after initial series of awareness campaigns and confidence building measures, the officials of the Commissionerate has conducted these raids.
Maintaining that the Drug Control Wing would continue to conduct regular inspections of the medical stores to ensure compliance of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, Pannu said that all the officers have been directed to remain vigilant, besides seeking people’s help in “identifying the black sheep”.
“All the Drug Control Officers, including 38 Drug Inspectors and six Zonal Licensing Authorities in the State have been asked to be vigilant in their respective jurisdictions and weed out the Spurious or ‘Not of Standard Quality’ medicines, misbranded products sans mandatory ‘Schedule H Drug’ declaration as well to check the illegal stock of habit forming drugs,” he added.
In fact, he also sought peoples’ participation in identifying the black sheep on FDA helpline number 9815206006 and email id — punjabdrugscontrolorg@gmail.com — which is proving to be of great help.
Pannu said: “In a period of 17 months, falling between January 2018 to May 2019, as many as 13,500 inspections were conducted and 5,313 samples of drugs were taken. The total value of seized drugs was to the tune of Rs 4.5 crore. The cumulative test results of samples seized found 11 samples as misbranded and 203 as ‘Not of Standard Quality’.”
Describing the nature of offences, Pannu said that licenses of 1414 firms have been suspended out of which 1278 suspensions were on account of general contraventions while 136 were related to habit forming drugs.
Pannu added that 171 prosecution orders have been issued against the defaulters and 139 prosecutions have been launched.
So far, as many as 120 cases have been decided resulting in 77 convictions ranging between three to five years of imprisonment along with fine, while 14 accused have been declared as proclaimed offenders, he said.