ASPA lobbies for mandatory authentication for medicines

Kolkata : The Authentication Solution Providers Association (ASPA) emphasised the need for specific anti-counterfeit laws in the country to stem the growing menance of fake products which affect human lives and create huge loss of revenue.

"We do not have specific anti-counterfeit laws to tackle fake products in the country. Copyright laws have limitations and do not attract any harsh penal provsions," ASPA secretary C S Jeena said here.

ASPA is a body engaged in authentication solutions for industry benefitting some 10,000 manufacturers in India.

It said counterfeits are growing at the rate of 44 per cent in India compared to just three per cent globally.

International Hologram Manufactuerers Association chairman and ASPA senior member, Manoj Kochar said Indian members are mostly small and medium scale firms and so their voices are not heard seriously by the Centre.

ASPA general secretary Arun Agarwal said when drug exports attract mandatory authentication and verification system then why is it not being implemented in the country as well?

He expressed concern about government inaction on not making some kind of authentication mandatory for medicines in the domestic market.

Kochar said only single digit number of the total domestic medicines are using some sort of authentication solutions.

According to ASPA even Indian Medical Association has found 25 per cent of the medicines in the country are either counterfeit, fake or sub-standard.

According to FICCI-Cascade as of 2013-14, loss to Indian industry is Rs 1,05,381 crore from just seven sectors like FMCG, mobile, alcholic beverage, auto components and computer hardware. The loss to government revenue is Rs 39237 crore.

ASPA is running Make Sure India campaign along with the Make in India campaign.

"At the time when we are focucsing on make in India, we should also parallely focus at stopping fake and counterfeit," Kochar said.