HYDERABAD: Tightening its grip on the manufacturing, stocking and sale of illegal and sub-standard drugs, the Drugs Control Administration (DCA) has seized medicines worth Rs 20,47,36,570 since December 4.
The raids were conducted on people and organisations selling spurious drugs, narcotics, psychotropic substances and other illegally manufactured medicines without any licence. As many as 24 quacks, most of whom were operating in villages, were raided, with stock worth Rs 18.76 lakh seized from them during this time period. Among the quacks, the highest seizure of Rs 5 lakh was reported from Narsingi village of Rangareddy district.
Taking all cases into consideration, the highest seizure was reported on March 21 from the Bollaram Industrial Area in Sangareddy, where the officials found PSN Medicare Private Ltd manufacturing 3-Methylmethcathinone (MMC), a synthetic drug used for recreation purposes, and seized stock worth Rs 8.99 crore.
In another case, an ENT surgeon, working at a hospital in Jagtial, was arrested on March 16 for supplying narcotic drugs to an addict in Hyderabad. After stealing the drugs such as 'VERMOR-15', 'Rumorf' (morphine injection) and others from the operation theatre, he used to courier them to Sainikpuri.
On December 4, the DCA raided an unlicenced premises at Macha Bollaram in Secunderabad and found counterfeit anti-cancer drugs claimed to be manufactured by a non-existent company, Astra Generics Pvt. Ltd. During the raid, 36 varieties of drugs worth Rs 4.35 crore were confiscated. An accused, Kadari Sateesh Reddy, was also arrested.
"In the coming months also, there will be more confiscations by our teams. All the arrested persons have been sent on remand," DCA Director-General VB Kamalsan Reddy told TNIE.
While the Drugs Control Laboratory (DCL), which was accorded a 'certificate of accreditation' by the NABL on Wednesday, 79 drugs were reported to not be of standard quality (NSQ) in 2023. It has termed 31 drugs as NSQ in the first two months of this year.
Meanwhile, apart from the Prohibition and Excise department, the DCA officials also conducted joint operations with the TS-NAB and the police.
Rs 1.15 lakh of meds confiscated in raids
In two different raids in Ibraimpatnam, DCA officials identified a medical shop operating without a licence and a quack claiming to be a registered medical practitioner. A total of 145 varieties of medicines, including antibiotics, analgesics and anti-ulcer drugs, were found stocked at these two locations. The DCA officials seized the stocks estimated to be worth Rs 1.15 lakh. In the first raid in Pocharam village, a medical shop owned by one G Narsimha was raided, and officials found that were operating it without a drug licence.
In the second incident, a clinic, operated by one Mantharala Ramthu Basha, was raided. He claimed to be a medical practitioner without any required qualifications. Officials said they detected several higher-generation ‘antibiotic injections’ at the clinic during the raid. Indiscriminate sale of antibiotics, by unqualified persons might have disastrous consequences on the health of the public, including the emergence of ‘anti-microbial resistance’, DCA officers lifted samples for analysis.