Display Of WhatsApp Number Outside Chemist Shops Must In Odisha To Check Fake Drugs

Bhubaneswar: In a move to curb sale of fake medicines in Odisha, drug control authorities have issued a notification for display of WhatsApp number of officials outside all chemist shops to enable customers to lodge complaint and register their grievance.

According to sources, it has been made mandatory for chemists across the state to display the notice along with the phone number of the drug inspector concerned outside their shops so that customers can lodge complaints about the quality of medicines purchased.

If any medicine purchased by the customers is found to be fake or spurious or if it has any deficiency, they can send a review report about the details of the drugs on WhatsApp for necessary action.

The move by the Drug Controller has come in the wake of detection of fake BP medicines in the market in Cuttack city.

It may be noted that two medicine distributors in Cuttack, Sanjay Jalal, owner of Puja Enterprises, and Rahul Syal, proprietor of VR Agencies, were arrested last month after huge quantities of fake Telma-40 and Telma-AM tablets were seized during raids by officials of the state Drug Control Administration in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

A laboratory test of the seized drugs confirmed those to be fake. The investigation revealed that these agencies had allegedly procured the fake drugs from Gaya in Bihar and Bengaluru in Karnataka.

Commissionerate Police also arrested two others, accused of supplying spurious blood pressure medicines, from Bihar and brought them to Cuttack on transit remand. The accused are Alok Kumar Mishra and Harish Kumar, both aged 40 of Shastri Nagar in Bihar’s Gaya district. The police also froze Rs 12 lakh in two bank accounts of the two medicine distributors.

Glenmark, the manufacturer of Telma-40 and Telma-AM, has clarified that it did not manufacture the fake drugs seized in Odisha.