New Delhi, March 6: An international narcotics watchdog has expressed concern at inadequate controls in India for preventing diversion of approved narcotic drugs into the illegal market.

A recent survey has pointed out that the country is witnessing increasing abuse of pharmaceutical drugs, ranging from injectable analgesics to codeine-based cough syrups and anxiolytics in tablet form, as well as leakage of acetic anhydride and potassium permanganate, chemicals needed to produce heroin and cocaine, said Gary Lewis, the South Asia representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

The International Narcotics Control Board?s report, released last week, suggested that the problem was not unique to India. In Bangladesh, the number of seizures of codeine-based cough syrups from India was equal to that of cannabis herb.

The report gave no figures but mentioned India and Bangladesh as major sources of cannabis herb in the world.

?An individual seizure (in Bangladesh) often consists of several hundreds of litres of such cough syrup,? the report said.

The narcotics board was also looking at trends of many countries getting into opium cultivation to reduce their dependence on imports. India and Turkey have been traditional suppliers of opiate raw material for medicinal and scientific purposes.

?This has resulted in excess of licit opiate raw material,? board member M.M. Bhatnagar said. Stocks of raw material in India could meet the global demand for a year, he said.

The report also discussed concerns in the regional enforcement machinery at the increase in heroin production in Afghanistan, which finds its way to Europe, including Britain, which has the third highest number of heroin addicts and the largest heroin seizure rate in the continent. Afghanistan grew an estimated 4,200 tonnes of the drug in 2004, compared to 800 tonnes in 2003.