New Delhi: A government panel has recommended revoking the ban on the sale of the life-saving drug oxytocin through retail chemists following an outcry from doctors.

The Drugs Technical Advisory Board has urged the Centre to delete certain clauses in a notification that ban oxytocin sales through retail chemists with effect from September 1.

The Union health ministry had cited the advisory board's recommendation to impose the ban and ask hospitals and clinics to procure oxytocin from a single public-sector company, Karnataka Antibiotics Pharmaceuticals Limited.

This had followed longstanding concerns about the abuse of oxytocin in the dairy sector to enhance milk production.

Oxytocin, however, is a key drug that doctors routinely use to prevent death from post-partum haemorrhage, or heavy blood loss during childbirth.

Worried by the ban order, the Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecological Societies of India had warned the government that any impediment to the easy availability of oxytocin "is likely to result in significant rise in loss of women's lives due to haemorrhage during childbirth".

Senior federation members and other doctors have also expressed doubt that a single public-sector company can meet the nationwide demand for oxytocin, which they say is now supplied by more than 20 companies.

After reviewing the matter on July 25, the drug advisory board has now recommended revoking the ban, according to the minutes of its meetings, uploaded by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation on Thursday.

"This is a welcome recommendation," said K.V. Babu, an ophthalmologist in Kerala who had aired concerns about the ban and the Centre's decision to entrust a single company with meeting the nation's oxytocin needs.

Karnataka Antibiotics Pharmaceuticals, which began producing oxytocin only in July this year, has assured doctors it would be able to supply all the oxytocin needed in the country.

Jaideep Malhotra, Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecological Societies president, has highlighted that oxytocin needs to be maintained under refrigeration along the entire supply chain, from production to use.

The Centre's notification, issued in April, allows private companies in India to continue producing oxytocin but only for export markets.

"The directive to allow only (the Karnataka company) to supply oxytocin for domestic use gives an impression that private pharma companies are responsible for its illegal sale and use in animal husbandry," Babu told The Telegraph. "I think this directive can be challenged in a court."