Health dept advisory for medicine buyers: Verify contents of cash memo with medicine boxes
Telegraph | 3 June 2025
Calcutta: While purchasing drugs from medicine shops, customers should insist on a cash memo and check if it includes the name of the particular medicine, batch number, and expiry date, the health department said in a recent advisory for consumers.
A person buying medicines should verify the contents of the cash memo with the one written on the medicine boxes, the advisory added.
The advisory, titled “Right to Information on Right Drugs for Everyone”, lists several points as “awareness on drug safety” for those buying medicines.
Sources said the advisory has been sent by the directorate of drugs control to all medical colleges and hospitals, sub-divisional hospitals and health centres in the districts and blocks.
A copy has been sent to the Bengal Chemists and Druggists Association, the largest body of wholesale and retail medicine dealers in the state, with around 45,000 members.
The advisory, which says “know your medicine, verify and collect a bill,” lists several points that customers must check before purchasing medicines. Some of these include the following.
A copy of the licence to sell medicines, issued by the drugs control directorate, must be on display at the medicine store.
One must insist on a cash memo after buying drugs.
The cash memo must contain the name of the particular medicine, batch number, and expiry date. A person buying it should verify the contents of the cash memo with the one written on the medicine boxes.
A list of 300 medicines comes with a QR code that can be scanned to check if the medicine is spurious or not. The list of such drugs is available on www.wbhealth.gov.in/DrugAlerts.
If, after scanning the QR code, a message pops up saying “could not be verified,” then it is most likely that the particular medicine is not original. One can mail about this with a picture of the particular medicine and a copy of the cash memo to lodge a formal complaint.
The complaint can be lodged through an email at: prosecutionandcomplaintcell@gmail.com. WhatsApp at: 7908077615.
Batches of some common medicines have been listed under non-standard quality. A list of the medicines with specific batches must be displayed at the shops.
Senior health department officials said the state government has banned 137 medicines that did not meet the drug quality standards and issued a notification.
The move came close on the heels of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) identifying over 196 drugs across the country as substandard.
The Bengal government’s notification said: “... based on the list provided by CDSCO... all stakeholders are hereby directed to recall the batches of the products from the supply chain.”
“The health department’s advisory for medicine buyers is an attempt to spread awareness about how not to end up buying spurious medicines and what one should do to remain alert,” a senior health department official said.
“The department has also issued an advisory about how to prevent the flow of spurious drugs to wholesale and retail medicine dealers. We are closely monitoring the developments,” said the official.
The directorate of drugs control has been conducting search and seizure operations across various wholesale and retail shops over the last few months to identify and seize fake drugs.
“We have been running awareness campaigns among our members about how to ensure that one buys the right medicines from the original distributors. We have decided that a copy of the state government’s advisory for those purchasing medicines would be sent to all the members with a directive to display it outside their establishments,” said Prithwi Bose, secretary of the Bengal Chemists and Druggists Association.