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The fierce opposition against the e-pharmacies in the country is getting murkier with lakhs of brick-and-mortar pharmacy stores literally on warpath against the illegal operation of e-pharmacies which adversely affect their livelihood. As their repeated and prolonged clarion call for acting against the e-pharmacies did not receive much response from the government, the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), which represents more than 12 lakh members across the country, has announced a nationwide ‘Pharmacy Bandh’ on May 11, 2026. The immediate trigger for the announcement of this nationwide strike is the national trade body's demand for the immediate withdrawal of government notifications, specifically GSR 220(E) and GSR 817(E). The AIOCD contends that these draft rules act as loopholes that allow e-pharmacies to bypass the stringent requirements of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. The organization believes these digital pharmacy platforms threaten the livelihoods of more than 12 lakh brick-and-mortar chemists across the country through predatory pricing and unregulated sales. The primary reason for this tussle between the e-pharmacies and the traditional chemists is the fact that the country presently does not have a regulatory mechanism for online sale of drugs and the laws governing the brick-and-mortar pharmacy business are applicable to the e-pharmacies as well. The D&C Act does not distinguish between conventional and online sale of drugs. As per Section 18(c) of D&C Act, 1940 to be read with Rule 65, only a licensed retailer is entitled for the sale of drugs and that too on the basis of prescription of a doctor only. Rule 65 stipulates sale of drugs under the supervision of a registered pharmacist which also involves signing of the bill and stamping of the prescription by the pharmacist and the doctor. But, according to reports, as the existing laws are vague on the issue, there are rampant sale of prescription drugs by the e-pharmacies in contravention to the prevailing laws of the country.
The Union Health Ministry has itself to blame for this issue coming to such a pass. It is not that the ministry is not aware of these developments. As the country's pharmaceutical trade started gradually moving from offline to online on the turn of last decade, the issue caught the government and the Union Health Ministry in July 2015 constituted an expert committee, under the chairmanship of the then Maharashtra FDA Commissioner Dr Harshdeep Kamble, to assess the feasibility of online pharmacy in the country. After prolonged deliberations, the Ministry on August 28, 2018 came out with an extensive set of draft regulations to amend D&C Rules by incorporating separate part for the regulation of online pharmacies in the country. Ever since, the issue is entangled in the bureaucratic circles of the ministry. Even after more than one decade since the constitution of an expert committee on the issue, the government is yet to give final shape to the new rules. In the absence of clear-cut provisions in the D&C Act regarding the sale of drugs through e-pharmacies, utter confusion prevails in the country's pharmaceutical market at present. In the context of the rising incidence of multi-drug resistant bacteria, which is a serious public health issue worldwide, there is a larger public interest in regulating the online supply of drugs. Easy access to critical medicines like antibiotics through online pharmacies is a serious issue and there is definitely a need to have stringent and specific provisions for ensuring the effective monitoring and supervision on online pharmacies. It is a cause for serious concern as, in the absence of clear provisions, the new trading platform can also be used by the unscrupulous elements in the trade to route substandard and spurious medicines. This calls for urgent finalisation of a set of rules for governing the e-pharmacies in the country.
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