Medicine shops to remain closed on May 30

LUCKNOW: About 75,000 chemist shops across Uttar Pradesh will remain closed on May 30 (Tuesday) in support of the call given by the All-India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) to protest central government’s new drug policy.

“New rules will make it almost impossible for us to work, hence thousands of drug stores may simply close down in the coming months,” said Suresh Gupta, general secretary, AIOCD and Suresh Kumar, spokesperson of Chemists’ and Druggists’ Federation of Uttar Pradesh (CDFUP) in a joint press conference on Friday.

Over 8.5 lakh chemists shops, including over three lakh wholesale medicine shops across India, will remain closed on that day.

Explaining the key issues, they said the central portal coming up will make it mandatory for wholesalers to generate bill and upload it on a central server before selling drug to retail chemist. Also, a chemist will have to upload each prescription on the same server before he can generate bill for patient. The system enables tracking the medicine from the manufacturer till the patient, to check counterfeiting.

“This will be so tedious and impractical that selling medicine will be nearly impossible,” said Giriraj Rastogi, patron, CDFUP.

The office-bearers said tracking medicine is possible if the bar code is ensured on every strip.

They said the government could easily bring down prices of even branded drugs. “Prices are controlled by the government, why can’t they bring it down for the benefit of poor patients,” asked Suresh Gupta.

Vikas Rastogi, spokesperson of Lucknow Retail Chemists’ Association, said drug stores in government hospitals and pharmacies in hospitals would not be a part of the bandh to make sure people get medicine in case of emergency.

“For the past one year, we have been asking the government to settle the issues of online drug sale, which is illegal as per drug and cosmetics act. We also had talks and gave memorandum for other issues such as need for pharmacists at drug stores, licence renewal but there has been no response from the central government. Hence we are forced to protest by closing our establishments for a day,” added Gupta.