In an effort to tighten control over chemists and medical stores selling drugs illegally and breaching rules and regulations, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been conducting extensive campaigns and raids across the state. Despite these efforts, rules continue to be disregarded, with a significant increase in medical stores flouting regulations. In response to reported irregularities at medical stores in Haryana, FDA officials are actively working to ensure compliance with all rules.
In this regard, it has come to light that the FDA conducted a total of 8,180 inspections from April 2023 to October 2023, spanning a period of seven months. The inspections aimed to ensure the proper implementation of norms and maximize sample collection. Faridabad district, adjacent to the National Capital Delhi, emerged on top, with a total of 1,215 inspections, including 797 in Faridabad-1 and 418 in Faridabad-2. Panchkula followed closely with 814 inspections, the second-highest number across the state.
Similarly to ensure the compliance of rules of regulations, as many as 619, 574, 442, 424, 341, 323 and 325 inspections were conducted in Panipat, Sirsa, Yamunanagar, Palwal, Jhajjar, Ambala-1 and Ambala-2 respectively. Notably, Faridabad and Ambala have been divided in two zones for smooth functioning in terms of conducting raids and inspections. Besides, the samples of medicines along with the concerned documents were confiscated.
Following the inspection and the report submitted, what came to fore is that as many as 37 FIRs have been lodged against medical stores and the chemists involved in the breach of norms and regulations. In terms of the maximum cases registered, Rohtak emerges on the top with 10 FIR’s followed by Jhajjar, Panchkula, Karnal, Yamunnagar, Panipat and Bhiwani with 6, 4, 4, 3, 3 and 2 FIR’s while remaining 5 FIR’s were lodged in Ambala, Fatehabad, Hisar, Mewat and Sonipat. It is pertinent to mention that breach of norms and non-compliance of regulations reported included selling medicine lacking prescription, selling drugs illegally without license and availability of the banned drugs at medical shops. Apart from this, certain banned substances and intoxicants were being sold at the medical stores which necessitated the action against the violators by the FDA officials. Ashok Meena, an IAS who holds the portfolio of the Commissioner, FDA said the following the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 , the department is committed to ensure the compliance of the rules along with the quality of the medicine so that the people do not fall prey to the violators involved in breach of norms. ‘’ Besides, in order to have an eye on the violators flouting the rules and regulations, the FDA jointly conducts the raid in a collaboration with the police consistently and in wake of the flaws coming to fore, continuous action is being taken against wrongful medical store operators’’ he added.
Further, the officials of the FDA divulged the details stating that samples were collected from 22 districts across the state. Among these, a maximum 142 samples were taken from Ambala-1 and Ambala-2 followed by Faridabad-1 and Faridabad-2 with 140 samples jointly. Likewise, Fatehabad, Panchkula, Panipat, Palwal, Kaithal and Bhiwani witnessed the collection of 87, 85, 84, 72, 66, 60 samples and among the whole, the report of 1242 samples has been submitted. Further ,the information received also revealed that following the whole process, 4 samples were found to be of sub-standard quality. In three cases, the culprits were found guilty by the court while 7 were acquitted. Out of the total cases, there are 395 cases which are pending in the court and maximum number of sub judice matter are in Gurugram i.e. 34 followed by Fatehabad, Sirsa, Jhajjar, Rohtak, Ambala-1 and Ambala-2 with 32, 26, 25, 22, 19 and 20 matters respectively.