Many a time, ayurvedic and unani medicine sellers get away with outlandish claims of curing the most difficult of diseases. The state drug control administration has decided to curb them.

The administration will conduct regular raids at shops selling unani and ayurvedic medicines.

The process of recruiting two ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) drug inspectors for the purpose has started. Sources said the posts were lying vacant for a long time.

"Two ayush drug inspectors will be notified within the next three days. According to the plan, the department will initiate action against ayush medicine sellers who are violating the Drug Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act 1954," said state drug controller Ramesh Kumar.

According to the Act, advertisements on medicine wrappers, claiming the cure of 54 diseases are prohibited. The 54 diseases include AIDS, heart disorders, diabetes, asthma, obesity, sexual impotence and cancer.

The drug control administration will take action against 40 ayurvedic and unani medicine companies, which were earlier found misleading people with such adverts .

Ramesh said: " The sellers have been found violating the Drug Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act."?

He did not disclose the names of the shops .

"The main objective of the Act is to ensure that people do not resort to self-medication. If somebody goes to a doctor to obtain a prescription, we have no issue. But people take drugs solely on the basis of advertisements at times. This can be dangerous," said a drug inspector preferring anonymity.

Ramesh said: "The administration will send show cause notices to 60 drug companies in the next two days. Of these, 40 are ayush companies who are violating the act. The rest are allopathic and they have been found violating the Drug (Price Control) order of the government .

According to the Union government's directive,there is to be a fixed price for scheduled and non-scheduled drugs. W holesalers are supposed to sell medicines under a fixed margin but it was found that they were selling them at a higher price.

"We will submit our report within a week, in which we will mention details such as the number of shops raided, the shops found guilty of violating the act and the number of unlicensed sellers. The health minister has asked us to prepare the report," said the drug inspector.

Raids on drug shops

The administration conducted raids at four medicine shops on Monday, including Ma Durga at Raja Bazar, Sri Ramkrishna Medical and Lucky Medical at Mithapur and Bihar Medico at Govind Mitra Road.

Ma Durga and Sri Ramkrishna Medical could not produce bills against most of the drugs purchased from their shops. Besides, a pharmacist and the register for schedule H1 drugs were also not found at both stores.

Two misbranded drugs were found at Lucky Medical (manufacturing and expiry dates were not mentioned on their labels), while at Bihar Medico, officials found no record for sales.