Last Updated on February 17, 2023 by The Health Master
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), a trade association, brought the concerns of wholesale and retail chemists to the attention of Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
It claimed that thousands of wholesale and retail chemists were negatively impacted by the online pharmacy business operations of numerous significant foreign and domestic corporations.
This is due to their open disregard for the Drug and Cosmetic Act and its rules, as well as their anti-consumer practices that endanger the safety and health of Indian consumers.
The Drug and Cosmetics Act and Rules in India govern the production, importation, sale, and distribution of drugs.
The Act and Rules are stringent and make it mandatory not only for every importer, manufacturer, seller or distributor of drugs to possess a valid license but also make it mandatory that all drugs be dispensed by a registered pharmacist only.
“However, e-pharmacy marketplaces are misusing the loopholes in the law and playing with the lives of innocent Indian consumers by selling drugs without prescription and dispensing drugs without a registered pharmacist,” said CAIT National President B.C. Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal in a joint statement.
They claimed that the government should allow only those e-pharmacies that own the drugs purportedly sold on the e-pharmacies, and that the remaining e-pharmacies in the country should be asked to close their doors.
Furthermore, no one may establish a web portal to act as an intermediary between the e-pharmacy entity and the consumer.
For instance, if a spurious, adulterated or misbranded drug gets delivered to the consumer, a marketplace like Pharmeasy or Netmeds will always hide behind intermediary protection which is a rampant malpractice even in e-commerce. An entity that wholly owns inventory will be liable in all circumstances.
Bhartia and Khandelwal urged the government to ensure that all drugs are disbursed only from the registered retail pharmacy and only by a registered pharmacist after following the due verification process to ensure consumers get exactly what they order.
Both the trade leaders said that the government should impose a minimum penalty of Rs 1,00,000 which may extend to Rs 10,00,000 so that violators are suitably penalised.
The CAIT has decided to organise a national level conference of prominent chemists Associations of different States of the Country in 1st week of March.
Meanwhile, a CAIT delegation will soon meet with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya to inform them of the flagrant violations of e-pharmacies in the nation.
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