Amritsar, July 23 (K.L. Jit Walia): The Punjab Chemists Association, affiliated with the All India Chemists and Druggists Association (AICDA), held an online meeting via Google Meet under the leadership of State President Surinder Duggal. The meeting was attended by district presidents, secretaries, and working committee members from across Punjab to discuss the issues faced by over 27,000 chemists in the state.
During the meeting, members expressed serious concern over the alleged lack of concrete action by the Punjab Health Department despite repeated representations. It was unanimously decided that memorandums would be submitted to all 118 MLAs of Punjab by July 30 to bring the chemists’ concerns and demands to the government’s attention.
The association also announced that memorandums would be submitted to the Zonal Drug Inspectors and Drug Inspectors of all 23 districts by the same deadline. If no satisfactory action is taken, protests will be staged outside district offices of the Drug Department. Furthermore, a state-level protest will be organized outside the Drug Department office in Mohali-Chandigarh from August 20 to 22, with participation from chemists across all 23 districts.
State President Surinder Duggal and Secretary G.S. Chawla said that chemists had supported the government during the COVID-19 pandemic, floods, and various public welfare campaigns. However, they alleged that current government policies have pushed the chemist business into crisis.
The association’s key demands include:
Amendments to the Punjab Drug Act.
Resolution of technical issues with the ONDLS portal.
Curbing arbitrary practices by corporate companies.
Immediate renewal of long-pending pharmacist registrations.
Ban on online sale of medicines.
Strict action against counterfeit medicines.
Withdrawal of the H Register.
Regular inspections of Jan Aushadhi Kendras.
The draft memorandum to be submitted to the 118 MLAs was also discussed and approved unanimously during the meeting.
Among those present were Amardeep Singh, Sudarshan Chaudhary, Rajiv Jain, Ashok Balianwala, Bal Krishna Kataria, Satish Kapoor, Rajiv Kapoor, Sukhbir Singh, Jatinder Sethi, Naresh Jindal, Rakesh Aggarwal, Rajesh Mahajan, Rajiv Garg, Viney Rawal, Ajay Bansal, G.S. Chawla, Ashok Chhabra, Vikram Thakur, Ravinder Bhatia, Sumit Sharma, Narendra Arora, Parjinder Anand, Sanjay Sehgal, Jatinder Chawla, Ashwani Kumar, Subodh Kakkar, Rupinder Gupta, Lovely Dabar, Raman Kumar, Shashi Goyal, and presidents and secretaries from all 23 districts of Punjab.
KL JIT WALIA
