Himachal Pradesh Health Minister Colonel Dhaniram Shandil informed the State Legislative Assembly on Tuesday that in the last one year, samples of 374 medicines have failed in Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh area in Solan district.

He said that action has been taken as per rules against those firms whose samples have failed and some have also been blacklisted.

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The show cause notices have also been issued to many units, he added.

“An ultra modern lab will soon be inaugurated to check the quality of medicines. It is being constructed at a cost of Rs 32 crore,” he said, while replying to the original questions of MLAs Kewal Singh Pathania and Vipin Singh Parmar and supplementary question of MLA Dr Janak Raj during the Question Hour in the Assembly on Tuesday.

Shandil said that as per the provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, samples are taken by drug inspectors from time to time to check the quality of medicines and to check their quality, Joint Testing Laboratory, Kandaghat, is located in the state.

These samples are tested at the Regional Testing Laboratory Chandigarh authorized by the state government, he added.

He said that if the report of drug samples comes against the prescribed standards, then action is taken against them as per the provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.

Earlier, MLA Kewal Singh Pathania said that there are repeated reports of drug samples failing and sought to know what steps are being taken to ensure that this does not repeatedly happen in the near future.

MLA Vipin Singh Parmar questioned how many drug samples failed in the pharmaceutical hub in BBN.

He asked whether an ultra modern lab was being set up to check the quality of the medicine.

MLA Dr Janak Raj questioned the process for testing medicine samples and the filling up of post of Drug Controller.

The company whose drug sample fails, continues to manufacture medicines by taking a license under another name.

On this, the Health Minister said that there are a total of 677 pharmaceutical industries in the state.

He said that the state government is constructing a drug testing laboratory in Baddi with the help of the Central government so that a large number of drug samples can be tested and the manufacturing and distribution of any kind of substandard drug in the state can be completely controlled.

He said that there are 39 drug inspectors in the department, who are inspecting these manufacturing units, sales premises and government hospitals.

Nevertheless, if any unit violates this Act, action is taken against it as per rules, said Shandil.