Illegal, Fake Drug Racket Rocks Bihar Assembly

An illegal drug racket busted recently in the state capital rocked the Assembly today with opposition BJP demanding CBI probe into it alleging involvement of health department officials.

Raising the issue during Question Hour, BJP MLA Vikram Kunwar asked how license was reissued to Hanuman Drug Agency in April when expired medicines were seized from it during a raid in September 2010.

Kunwar said a raid in July 9 this year at the same agency had yielded a huge cache of expired medicines meant for use in state government hospitals, and demanded a CBI enquiry.

Rejecting the demand for a CBI probe, Bihar Health Minister Ramdhani Singh said the matter was under the jurisdiction of the state government and it would be investigated by his department’s officials.

Supporting the demand for CBI enquiry, Leader of the Opposition Nand Kishore Yadav said, “This is a very serious issue as it concerns lives of poor people. The expired medicines recovered in raids are for government hospitals where poor people go for treatment.”

Dates on these expired medicines were changed and then sent to places like New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and even Nepal, Yadav said adding health department probe would not work as roles of health department officials were questionable.

Congress Legislature Party leader Sadanand Singh also joined the issue asking who was the health minister when drug license of the agency concerned was renewed.

Treasury bench officials led by Finance Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said the crackdown on fake and illegal medicines was continuing with raids almost on a daily basis and “we should wait for the full report to come”.

At this, opposition members stood up shouting anti-government slogans and Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary ordered that the discussion on the issue would be taken up on a later date will all its supplementary questions.

The drug control administration has conducted a series of raids since July 9 busting a major drug racket in Patna and seizing around 3,000 types of medicines worth over Rs 10 crore, officials sources said.

A majority of these medicines had their expiry dates tampered with and were meant for supply in government hospitals. Price stickers were put on medicines bearing ‘Government use only’ stamp.

A large quantity of physician samples that are not for sale, fake bills and other documents regarding diversion of medicines supposed to be used at government institutions, fake stickers and wrappers were also recovered during the raids, they said.

The drug control officials have lodged an FIR against 85 people so far. They hinted at the involvement of international mafia as the drugs were also supplied to neighbouring countries.

Courtesy: Outlook India