Gujarat FDCA plans mobile drug testing laboratory

Budget allocation for the state FDCA doubles this year to Rs 39 crore

Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA), which has many firsts to its credit, will soon come up with a mobile drug testing laboratory for spurious drugs. This will be the first such laboratory in the country, the FDCA claimed.

"The mobile laboratory would cost around Rs  67 lakh, and the state government has already provisioned for it in the budget. We will keep this lab in our Gandhinagar office, and would send it to the spot as and when there is any news of spurious drugs from any part of the state," said H G Koshia, commissioner, Gujarat FDCA. He added that the laboratory would have all the necessary equipment needed for drug testing.

Detection of fake drugs is a lengthy process, this would definitely expedite the entire process of detection, he claimed adding that the FDCA would no longer have to wait for reports from the laboratory. The spurious drug testing laboratory comes after the FDCA had already launched a food testing lab last year.

He also informed that the budget allocation for the FDCA has almost doubled this year to Rs  39 crore, up from around Rs  19-20 crore last year. Meanwhile, the regulator has also sought for funds  of around Rs  100 crore from Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for upgradation of infrastructure.  Gujarat is also the first state in the country to  implement an online drug alert system for retailers through short messaging service (SMS). It recently launched an upgraded version of the system, whereby a consumer can send an sms to the FDCA mentioning the batch number of a particular medicine he has bought and would get an instant reply on whether the drug is fake or not.