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Reiterating its demand to the union government, the Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA), the premier professional organisation of registered pharmacists in the country, has again written to the health minister JP Nadda to consider Bachelor of Pharmacy as an eligible qualification for Food Safety Officers and Food Analysts (FSO and FA).
According to IPA, B Pharm is one of the best suitable qualifications for performing the duties of Food Safety Officers and Food Analysts as the graduates in pharmacy have achieved competence in testing and analysis of food products along with drugs during their course of study.
The general secretary of the association Dr. Subhash Mondal sent a letter to the health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda recalling his attention to the IPA’s previous request to the minister to make B Pharm as an eligible qualification for FSO and FA.
His letter finds significance in the wake of a recent amendment in the Food Safety and Standards Rules 2011 to enable ayush graduates to apply for food safety officers. IPA says that their repeated appeals to the union health minister have been ignored, but several graduations including the traditional medical disciplines like degree in Sowa Rigpa were made eligible for the post.
Dr. Mondal has apprised the minister that B Pharm qualified personnel have already shown their competence in ensuring the quality and safety of food products, in conducting inspections in manufacturing facilities and analysing food products. During their study for graduation, the pharma graduates got chances to undergo training in food manufacturing industries where drugs and nutraceuticals are manufactured along with food products.
As per the notification dated September 21, 2023 the qualification for FSO was a degree in Food Technology or Dairy Technology or Biotechnology or Oil Technology or Agricultural Science or Veterinary Science or Biochemistry or Microbiology or Master Degree in Chemistry or Degree in Medicine from a recognized university. Now, in March this year, it was amended again to include several qualifications including ayurveda, siddha, unani, homeopathy and sowa rigpa. But the pharmacy qualification, the best competent qualification, has been excluded.
Dr. Mondal has stated that the process of manufacturing and testing of food products is similar to the manufacturing and testing of drugs. Pharmacy graduates are being taught several subjects and many of them are relevant to food technology and analysis. Some of the subjects he quoted as examples for the knowledge of the minister are human physiology, pharmaceutical manufacturing technology, microbiology, biochemistry, modern instrumental analysis, pharmacology, toxicology, formulation development, preservation, quality assurance and packaging.
To justify IPA’s demand, the secretary of the association has informed the minister that because of similarities and common concern for human safety, the drug control administration and the food control wing are clubbed together under one administration called Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and they are located in the same building called FDA Bhavan in most of the states in the country. This shows that one unit cannot be separated from the other. Considering the co-location of these two departments in all their common features, the government is urged to consider Bachelor of Pharmacy as an eligible qualification for FSO and FA posts, thereby one more amendment is required, said the letter sent to JP Nadda by IPA.
The secretary of the IPA, Dr. Mondal was a regulatory officer in the drug control department under the FDA in West Bengal.
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