BENGALURU: The Bangalore District Chemists and Druggists Association (BDCDA) has urged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to constitute a high-level enforcement task force headed by senior IPS officers to tackle the growing threat of counterfeit medicines.
The association said the proposed task force, involving officers from the Karnataka Food Safety and Drug Administration department (FDA), must be empowered to carry out state-wide raids, seizures, and arrests of those involved in the fake drug trade, which it described as “a form of national public health terrorism.”
BDCDA acknowledged and appreciated the government’s recent move to develop a software for the recall of Not of Standard Quality (NSQ) drugs — a first-of-its-kind initiative in India. However, it emphasised that this only addresses a limited part of the much bigger issue of counterfeit and spurious drugs in circulation, particularly in the post-Covid period, when their prevalence has reportedly surged by 50%.
Citing Parliamentary Standing Committee findings and recent trends, the association warned that counterfeit medicines were infiltrating the market due to lax enforcement, lenient laws, and growing consumer preference for discounted drugs. A key bottleneck, according to BDCDA, is the shortage of drug inspectors. Only eight out of 12 sanctioned posts in the state are filled, making surveillance against fake drugs extremely difficult. To address this, it reiterated the need for an IPS-led multi-agency team that could plug enforcement gaps and ensure strong punishment for offenders.