THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government has abolished the quality control division of the Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited (KMSCL) and handed over the responsibility of ensuring the quality of procured medicines to the state drugs control department, Health and Devaswom Minister K Muraleedharan announced on Thursday.
The move comes after widespread complaints regarding sub-standard drugs procured and distributed through KMSCL in recent years, involving medicine stocks worth crores of rupees.
Serious allegations were also raised that KMSCL’s internal wing inspecting its own procured drugs bred corruption and compromised transparency.
Recognising the urgent need to overhaul the existing quality assurance mechanism, the government decided to transfer the duties to the drugs control department, which possesses the statutory powers, technical expertise, and regulatory authority required for drug testing. To address current staff shortages in the department and prevent delays in testing, permission has been granted to recruit required personnel on a temporary contract basis.
Under the revised system, every batch of medicine procured via KMSCL will be subjected to mandatory quality checks by the drugs control department before being distributed to government hospitals and institutions.
The minister stated that the decision aims to make drug testing entirely transparent and confirmed that official instructions have been issued to the health principal secretary in this regard.