Vigilance raids find cos, drugs control officials in nexus

Thiruvananthapuram: The vigilance raid on the drugs control department officials in all its district offices on Friday found that drug companies have been selling sub-standard drugs after influencing department officials.
The vigilance raid found that drugs department officials had purposefully delayed prosecution charges against the companies which distributed sub-standard drugs to medical stores in Kollam and Kottayam districts.
In Pathanamthitta, it was found that the drugs supplied by the companies to Kerala Medical Services Corporation Ltd (KMSCL) for government hospitals were manufactured two years ago.
The drugs control department officials, who had tested the drugs received by the KMSCL at Ernakulam, had not supplied them to the government hospitals even after six months.
In Ernakulam, it was found that department officials had not been recording the results of the samples sent for testing in a bid to help the drug companies.
The vigilance department received secret information that drug inspectors were not following protocols for collecting and sending samples for testing from the drugs available in the market though there were clear directions.
On the number of samples to be collected each month, it was observed that the samples were not collected to help the drug companies.
It was also found that drug inspectors had been collecting samples from the same medical stores every month instead of collecting them from different shops.
The report on the vigilance raid will be submitted to the state government and will request action on officials against whom serious lapses have been observed, said vigilance director Manoj Abraham in a statement.