Be more cautious
Kashmir is one such region in the country which consumes medicine in huge quantities. This huge consumption of medicines here has made the regions medicine market quite competitive with all sorts of drug manufacturing companies trying to capture some part of the market.
The region has seen a surge in the use of medicines, particularly antibiotics, often due to self-medication practices and easy availability without prescriptions. This has raised concerns about antibiotic resistance and health risks but has also given rise to many ailments that arise due to drug consumption.
This brings us to discuss the initiation of responsible medication practices or initiatives to promote healthcare awareness in Kashmir so that the people’s health is secured and they are held back from excessive medicine consumption.
The high medicine consumption has added another dangerous dimension to the entire process as a huge number of spurious medicines are making to the markets in Kashmir Valley.
The spurious drug industry thrives on the ignorance of consumers and lack of effective regulatory system. According to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, a drug is deemed to be spurious if it is manufactured under a name which belongs to another drug, if it is an imitation of another drug or if it has been substituted wholly or partly by another drug or if it wrongly claims to be the product of another manufacturer.
A stringent penalty for manufacture and sale of spurious drugs has also been prescribed under the Act. Notably, under the provisions of the Act, it is the joint responsibility of Central and State Governments through their respective Drug Control organizations to regulate manufacture and sale of drugs as well as to keep surveillance over possible movement of spurious drugs.
Just yesterday as many as 167 drug samples were flagged as ‘not of standard quality’ (NSQ) across the country in December 2025, the Union health ministry pointed out, advising authorities and the people to maintain caution and restrain.
In a monthly drug alert issued by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), central drug laboratories found 74 samples manufactured by various firms to be NSQ, while state drug testing laboratories identified 93 samples that failed to meet prescribed quality standards.
As the manufacture and sale of spurious drugs is primarily a clandestine activity, there is a need for continuous surveillance by the government with active co-operation from people. As per the rules, doctors have to prescribe medicines on its generic name and not on the trade name of a drug manufacturing company.
However, no such exercise is practised here and despite various government orders and circulars the prescription audit mechanism has not been put in place in Jammu and Kashmir.
This gives the medical practicioner a free hand to promote those brands which have adopted least mechanism of quality control.
The authorities need to ensure implementation of prescription audit as it would help to check the practice of resorting to unfair trade practices by the manufacturing companies and spurious drug dealers.
