Mushrooming menace of spurious & fake drugs in Baddi Barotiwal Nalagarh pharma hub

One of the biggest pharma hubs of Asia Baddi Brotiwal and Nalagarh has not come out of its reputation of manufacturing fake and superiors drugs which at times has proved fatal to gullible patients, who are facing its onslaught as no government in the last thirty years could tame the genie which has remained out of the bottle.

Former BJP leader Mahinder Nath Soft drew the attention of people to the recent outcome of Central Drug Organisation analysis as samples of 11 medicines manufactured in the state have been found to have failed.

Expressing concern over continued illicit trade, he said that despite repeated Media stories authorities and law enforcement agencies remained silent spectators which also indicates from their mute response that there is something fishy.

 “Samples of 35 medicines have failed all over the country why did thirty percent of those belong to this pharma hub of Himachal,” he questions the meek response of the industry and authority on this heinous crime.

According to reports, a person named Sanjay Singh has been arrested in Baddi for running spurious drug material and flouting section 18 of the Drug and Cosmetic Act. Before this, a factory manufacturing spurious medicines in the name of renowned pharmaceutical companies were also caught.

 Himachal is a big hub of pharma industries. These big well-known companies have established their units in Himachal during the time of tax holiday, but the government has failed to control this industry and clamp down on those who manufacture spurious drugs. 

 Allegations of corruption have been leveled against the drug controller and other officers were posted here and many officers have even been arrested. 

 The pharma industry is like a golden egg laying hen for some politicians of the state who are growing in public life with a meteoric rise. Their wealth and public influence are increasing. They could cover up investigations and a few small fries sent behind bars occasionally.

 Mr. Soft goes on to say that something is wrong somewhere that is not stopping the manufacturing of spurious and substandard medicines. 

Mr. Soft has authored various blogs on the illicit trade of manufacturing and trading of spurious drugs or substandard and seeking to nip the evil in the bud and blacklist the firms and pharma people who are running this business of serving poison to people.

He is of the opinion, that persons found to be involved in this type of business should not be given bail and their case should be tried in the fast-track court so that they could not mint money and use it for their defense time and again. There is a very poor conviction rate and persons who were convicted and remained in jail are coming back to the same business again. He said that licenses of such pharma people must be tagged with offense and they should be given strict punishment rather than keeping the pound full of filth as they are doing now.  There is information that people involved in the crime should not be allowed to remain in the business as they may go for similar illicit ancillary activities after getting released from the cases. The  Congress government of Himachal Pradesh should immediately come up with an action plan to control this spurious drug business.