People's Democracy

Spurious Drugs Market Worth Rs 8000 Crore

FMRAI Holds Dharna in New Delhi

ACCORDING to the World Health Organisation (WHO), India accounts for nearly 35 per cent of world’s spurious drugs market. It is estimated that 40 per cent of the pharmaceutical market in our country i.e. Rs 8000 crore is under the grip of spurious drugs and black marketing. Not only is the people’s health at stake but also there is a serious loss to the exchequer of both the central and state governments as they are deprived of huge amounts on account of sales tax and excise duty.

It is on such a crucial issue that more than 2000 Medical and Sales Representatives from all over the country responded to the call of the Federation of Medical & Sales Representatives’ Association of India (FMRAI) and held a demonstration on January 6 in front of the union ministry of Health and Family Welfare against the black marketing of medicine and sale of fake drugs in the country.

FMRAI for the last ten years has been consistently raising its voice against the sale of fake drugs and black marketing of medicines by urging upon the central government for initiation of a CBI inquiry. Its requests were ignored. Taking up the agitational path, the FMRAI conducted a mass signature campaign on this issue. Lakhs of people have singed the memorandum of FMRAI, which will be handed over to the President of India on January 10, 2004.

D P Dubey inaugurated the dharna and Hannan Mollah, CPI(M) MP greeted the participants. Leaders from different trade unions, including M K Pandhe, (CITU), K L Mahendra (AITUC), and those from DYFI and AIKS also addressed the demonstrators.

The leaders felt that the cabinet committee’s clearance of the bill for awarding death penalty to the manufacturers/traders of spurious drugs would not make much headway in meeting this menace unless the government has the political will and desire. They referred to the fact that despite the Drugs and Cosmetic Act being amended in 1982 and punishment of life imprisonment was enacted for the offenders, not a single person has been punished thus far. This even though manufacture and sales of spurious drugs has increased many fold. They wanted the government to be more active and vigilant in curbing this menace.

Our country’s image has been shattered as many consignments from Malaysia, Vietnam, Mayanmar etc. have been returned as the drugs were found to be spurious.

D P Dubey said that many pharmaceutical industries are adopting highly pressurised marketing practices like unrecorded discounts, dumping goods, raising fake invoices in the name of hospitals and institutions. These goods never reach the hospital and are sold in the market. As a result huge quantity of medicines are sold in the market without proper bills. Manufacturers of spurious drugs are taking advantage of this situation and selling their spurious drugs in market in major drug mandis like Patna, Agra, Kanpur, Satna, Coimbature, Bangalore, Mumbai Kolkata and Delhi.  He said that nearly 60 per cent of the total spurious drugs and black marketing in the country are sold under the very nose of central government – at Bhagirath Place in Delhi. He also said that this menace was resulting in thousands of sales promotion employees’ losing their jobs. (INN)