Officials raid a medicine shop and (above) The Telegraph report of February 23, 2011 on the illegal medicine shops in the port town. Telegraph picture

Paradip, April 6: In a major crackdown, authorities here have shut down a number of unlicensed chemist shops yesterday.

Over a dozen of drugs and chemist shops that operated in the port town and its periphery without valid permit were locked up and suspected spurious drugs sold by them were seized. Drug samples were later sent for diagnostic test to the State Drugs Testing Laboratory in Bhubaneswar.

Earlier reports of spurt in unauthorised medicine shops had put the health officials in the Paradip port town in quandary.

On February 23, The Telegraph had carried out a news report highlighting the running of unauthorised medicine shops in Paradip and its adjoining areas.

“The state drugs control department, with magisterial presence, conducted raids on various chemist shops. As many as 14 medicine retail counters were found in operation without valid license. The shops were sealed and the drugs were put under seizure. Samples of drugs were also sent for laboratory test. As per our preliminary findings, majority of drugs being marketed from these retail counters were not from reputed pharmaceutical manufacturers”, said Dharmadev Puhana, drugs inspector, Jagatsinghpur.

Cases were registered against unauthorised retailers in accordance with the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, he said, adding that the guilty would be arrested if the seized drugs were tested to be fake and spurious.

“These retailers are playing with the lives of poor people by selling drugs in an unauthorised manner. They should be punished. As the government mechanism to curb such practice was conspicuous by its absence, the unlicensed chemists shops had sprouted out in Paradip. It is a cause of worry both for the health authorities and common people here,” said Balabhadra Patri, a retired administrator of Paradip Municipality.

Such unauthorised shops are acting as conduit for wide circulation of substandard and generic drugs. The state drugs control department officers were watching this silently all these years, he said.

“This illegal trend is a state-wide phenomenon. But of late, it has become more pronounced in the port town because of gross absence of vigil and surveillance by the drugs control administration,” said Baishav Charan Parida, a retired health department official.