Uttar Pradesh medicine traders close ranks on spurious drug issue

The wholesale and retail medicine dealers are closing ranks on the issue of recent Uttar Pradesh directive to book them if spurious drugs are confiscated from their premises.

“The medicine dealers operate under the Drug Act and they are not technical people to ascertain whether a given consignment of drugs is spurious or not,” UP Chemists and Druggists Federation (UPCDF), patron, Giriraj Rastogi told Business Standard.

He said in case fake drugs are found with the dealers by the government agencies, they should be treated as witness in the case rather than culprits themselves.

“The dealers only have to ensure that they posses authentic bills and vouchers for their purchases and that they buy medicines from valid channels,” he noted.

It was the onerous duty of the government and its law enforcement agencies to check the manufacture of spurious medicines and their subsequent distribution in the market, Rastogi added.

The Federation will soon give representation to the Governor and all the Member of Parliaments in UP across party affiliations on the matter.

“In Lucknow, we will give the memorandum to local MPs Lalji Tandon, Akhilesh Das and Bhagwati Singh belonging to BJP, BSP and SP respectively,” he informed.

There are about 1,25,000 wholesale and retail medicine traders in Uttar Pradesh, while the annual trade is estimated at Rs 800 crore.

“UP and Bihar alone account for almost 40 per cent of the national medicine trade, not only because of large population, but also higher consumption in the two states to fight diseases,” he added. Although, no official statistics are available pertaining to the spurious drug trade in UP, Rastogi said it would not be more than 5 per cent.