The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has decided to crack down on the cartelisation of the medicine and drug industry by asking companies to terminate their memorandums of understanding (MoU) in order to be able to manufacture drugs that are in short supply in the market. The FDA is also trying to bring down the number of chemists in the state so that the existing shop owners adhere to the rules and do not endanger the lives of the people by resorting to underhand activities.
While speaking at a press conference organised at the FDA headquarters in Bandra-Kurla Complex, FDA Commissioner Mahesh Zagade said that some of the influential drug manufacturing companies were trying to create a cartel, which will control the availability of drugs in the market. “We have been in talks with companies that have been threatened into signing the MoUs. The cartelisation is resulting in medicines becoming both unaffordable for the common man,” said Mr Zagade.
Mr Zagade said that the FDA had been trying to bring down the numbers of wholesalers and retailers. “In Maharashtra, there is one chemist shop for every 2,000 citizens, while in America there is a shop for every 5,000 citizens and in Malaysia there is one shop for 16,000 citizens. As a result, the chemists resort to unfair means to increase their profits. Our target is to have one chemist shop for 4,000 citizens, so that they can earn sufficient profits
and not resort to underhand activities,” said Mr Zagade.
He further added that in the past two years a large number of chemists had surrendered their licenses, while applications for the new ones had also come down, which was indicative of their
crackdown being effective.
“We have managed to inspect almost all chemists and food shops at least once and have taken action against businesses that were found flouting norms. We have let off others by issuing them improvement notices and cancelled licenses of several enterprises that failed to heed warnings,” said Mr Zagade.