IN SEARCH OF THE RIGHT FORMULA: The Union Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation, Oscar Fernandes (second from right), looking at the National Chemists Convention-2005 exhibition in Bangalore on Sunday. With him is Vishnu S. Kmath (left ), secretary of Karnataka Chemists' Foundation. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: The Federation of Chemists and Druggists of Karnataka and Pharma Trade Meet 2005 was inaugurated by H. Sudharshan, Vigilance Director (Health, Education and Social Welfare), Karnataka Lokayukta, at the Town Hall here on Sunday.

Many important issues were discussed during the course of the programme such as the menace of spurious drugs, the impact of VAT on pharmacy trade, the negligence involved in issuing licences to retailers and other topics.

No control

"The Government releases licences to retailers without any restrictions and control and the numbers are still rising. We have set up a committee which has drafted a report to control the number of pharmacists in two months and this report has been sent to the Central Drug Control Board so as to point out this negligence and ensure good quality drugs," said S. Ramakrishna Gandhi, Drugs Controller In-Charge for Karnataka, Drugs Control Department.

A memorandum has been compiled, outlining problems faced by these pharmacists and sent to the Chief Minister. The ordinance of VAT on retail price at first point, invoice pattern, purchase maintenance, filing returns and other such important aspects of VAT were talked about. "Bangalore's pharmacists are the first to implement VAT. What poses problem is VAT being imposed at every stage, making accounting systems difficult to manage as prices are not fixed," said V. Harikrishnan, association president.

"The Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940 was implemented only in 1945 and there is a lack of enforcement even on existing laws.

"There are about 17 drug testing laboratories in the country out of which only seven have the necessary facilities and the numbers of understaffed retail outlets in the city is growing because of unchecked and uncontrolled issuing of licences," said H. Srinivas, Licensing Authority and Assistant Drug Controller, Circle-I.

Another issue discussed was how spurious drugs manufacturing was blamed on pharmacists when they are only dealers of packaged goods. According to the U.N. surveys, the percentages of spurious drugs manufactured in India has risen from 0.5 per cent to over 35 per cent.

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