CDSCO to go for massive recruitment drive, to appoint 5500 staff at Centre & states

Source: Pharmabiz http://www.pharmabiz.com/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=82906&sid=1

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) is planning to embark on a massive recruitment drive by appointing 5500 new employees to meet the increasing drug regulatory challenges. Identifying the urgent need to address the severe staff shortage, the Centre will be appointing 2500 officials in the CDSCOs office alone, with another 3000 new employees in the state drug regulatory departments. The funds for the same will be obtained from the gross budgetary support of Rs.1750 crore, sanctioned by the Government, under the 12th Five Year Plan. Sources inform that from the 2500 alloted posts for the CDSCO, 1195 will be for the post of regulatory officials while the rest of the 1305 seats will be exclusively used for appointing laboratories officials. Likewise, in the states, out of the total number of posts, 2000 will be alloted for regulators officials while 1000 for laboratory personnels. According to a highly placed source from the CDSCO's office, “Lack of adequate manpower has always been bone of contention that questioned effectiveness of the working of the drug regulatory mechanism of the country. This strategic move will not only help in addressing the issue of shortage of drug inspectors but also ease the increasing work pressure on the existing drug regulators. Acknowledging the lacunae in the system, the government has earmarked substantial amount from its total budget for strengthening the central and state-level agencies.” While at present there are 470 sanctioned post in the CDSCO, only 200 seats of the same have been filled, whereas in the state there are only 1200 drug inspectors against the requirement of more than 3,200 drug inspectors as pointed out by Mashelkar committee. This is leading to huge amount of work pressure on the existing staff both at the Centre and the state as they have to deal with industry issues, drug applications, monitoring, implementation of the D&C Act etc. Sources from the industry cite that that this unmatched staff ratio is leading to a lot of delay and work paralysis in the system affecting the industry and its reputation. It is understood that the CDSCO for the time being has even sidelined the inspection of the Chinese manufacturing sites due to the severe shortage of staff, which is leading to some regulatory complication for the industry.