Noose could tighten on India's fake medicine manufacturers

Thursday, 12 September 2002, 19:30 IST
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Fake drug manufacturers and sellers could soon face stiff punishments like life imprisonment in India, which is said to account for 35 percent of spurious drugs in the world.

NEW DELHI: Alarmed by the growing market for fake medicines in the country, the central government is planning to amend laws regarding punishments. "There is a plan to amend laws and introduce harsher punishments. Special courts could be set up to speed up the trial of drug-related offences," Drug Controller of India Ashwani Kumar said. "Right now cases drag on for years. Though life imprisonment punishments are given out, they are rare. If strict sentences are handed over to criminals they will act as a deterrent," Kumar said. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 15 percent of all drugs in circulation in the world are counterfeit or substandard. India accounts for 35 percent of fake drugs. But Kumar said: "These are wild allegations. The WHO agrees that spurious medicines are a problem that is not restricted to India alone and is a worldwide phenomenon. "As medicines are consumer goods, this is bound to happen. But continuous efforts by us to nab such criminal elements have helped and the number of such cases has gone down." Earlier this year Delhi Police busted a gang that was selling fake medicines worth millions in northern India. Two years ago, the arrest of four Uzbek women and the recovery of 800 kg of spurious drugs valued at 2 million from them had exposed a massive racket in the sale of spurious Indian medicines in Russia. Apart from Delhi, spurious drug manufacturing units are said to be located primarily in Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Said Sanjiv Malik, general secretary of the Indian Medical Association: "What concerns us most is that fake life-saving drugs are being sold in the market. What about the sufferers? Are their lives not precious?" He said spurious drug manufacturers "either put less quantity of purified medicine in the tablets or sell branded medicines which just have sugar in it". Malik, however, said harsher punishments would not solve the problem. "One way to curb the menace is to ask chemists to issue mandatory cash memos. Chemists should be warned that if they are caught selling spurious medicines their licenses will be cancelled," he said. "We have to create awareness among the people that they should not buy medicines without taking a cash memo, which makes it easier to catch culprits," Malik said. Kumar said a government panel had recommended that all states should have better intelligence cells to monitor illegal activities, should conduct surveys to know what is the ground reality and should vigorously follow court cases. He said pharmaceutical companies had been roped in for joint raids. The Indian drug industry is estimated to be worth 200 billion. But it suffers a loss of around 20 percent because of spurious drugs, said G. Wakankar, executive director of the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association. "Harsher laws would be a good step," he said. Said Sanjiv Kaul, regional director-India of Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited: "This is clearly a national menace and must be stopped with tighter legislation and greater coordination among pharmaceutical companies."
Source: IANS