The supply of spurious life-saving medicines to hospitals, clinics and medical shops in Bengaluru and surrounding areas threatens not only the state’s healthcare system, but lives across India too. Probes have revealed that a bulk of these fake drugs was supplied from locations in Himachal Pradesh and Telangana. Five persons have so far been arrested in the case, while the kingpin is said to be holed up in Azerbaijan.
The police, along with officials from Karnataka’s Food and Drug Administration, raided a farmhouse near Bidadi on Bengaluru’s outskirts on August 18 and seized ₹4.91 crore worth of outdated drugs. Preliminary inquiries revealed that these medicines past their use-by dates were repackaged using names of globally reputed pharma manufacturers. But the precise extent of this racket across Karnataka and India is yet to be assessed. The state government has since constituted a special investigations team for the case.
The alarming nature of this scam lies in the fact that the largest component of the spurious drugs seized was Cefiavigent 2.5 injection, pushed as a cancer-related critical-care medication. There were as many as 5,640 vials seized, valued at ₹3.38 crore of the total ₹4.91-crore bust. As the seized vials are linked to counterfeit and unverified manufacturing operations with forged labels and expired components, health authorities have blocked their batch numbers on official portals.
Considering that the racket involves a sprawling nationwide network with the possibility of extending to several other states, Karnataka Health Minister U T Khader has written to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare seeking federal surveillance officials to be deputed to help Karnataka’s ongoing SIT probe to identify the precise nature and spread of the racket.
The alarm is not limited to casting aspersions on India’s ₹4.72-lakh-crore pharma industry, ranked third globally, and threatening exports worth ₹2.74 lakh crore; it extends to the potentially worrisome impact on further corrosion of public faith in the country’s healthcare system.
The onus of busting this—and similar other rackets—must squarely lie with both the Centre and the states to punish the guilty and build credible deterrence against such nefarious activities. Only that can protect and rebuild faith in healthcare, by far the most crucial sector.
