The Union Health Ministry has turned down the newly-created Ayush Ministry’s proposal seeking labeling of information on the homeopathic medicines in Hindi.
Sources in the Health Ministry said that a similar proposal was moved by the Hindi Consultative panel of the Health Ministry which wanted that the date of manufacturing and expiry should also be in Hindi had met with a similar fate. Both the proposals have been shot down by the Drugs Technical Advisory Board, the highest authority under the Health Ministry of technical matters.
Citing shortage of space on the drug bottles as the reason for its decision, the Ministry noted that it was not possible to provide bilingual information on the homeopathy medicines.
The DTAB, at its meeting held on February 16, discussed the issue submitted in detail. After detailed discussion, the DTAB agreed that “it will be difficult to provide details of medicines in bilingual language on the label of homoeopathic medicines.
“It observed that it will not be feasible to mention the details of the medicine bilingually on label due to the reasons such as small size of homoeopathic bottles; the names of homoeopathic medicines along with abbreviations are mentioned in homoeopathic pharmacopoeia in English only; and names of homoeopathic drugs are mentioned in “latin,” said a senior official from the Health Ministry.
However, the DTAB panel on homoeopathy was of the view that if any homoeopathic drug manufacturing firm wants to mention name of homoeopathic medicines in Hindi, the same could be done. It also opined that the name of homoeopathic medicines may be given either in Hindi or English along with date of manufacturer and expiry.