Out of the 89,729 drug samples tested between April 2022 and March 2023, 2,921 drugs were found to be "not of standard quality" while 422 were identified as spurious, the Rajya Sabha was told on Tuesday.

In a written reply, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said 642 prosecutions were launched for manufacturing, sale and distribution of spurious/adulterated drugs, while 262 persons were arrested during the same period as per information received from drugs controllers of various states and Union territories.

This excludes data from Rajasthan.

Giving details of the previous year, Pawar said a total 88,844 samples were tested between April 2021 and March 2022 of which 2,545 were declared to be not of standard quality while 379 were found to be spurious.

She said 592 prosecutions were launched for manufacturing, sale and distribution of spurious/adulterated drugs and 450 persons arrested during the same period.

Responding to a question, Pawar said that in order to assess the regulatory compliance of drug manufacturing premises in the country, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) along with State Drugs Controllers (SDCs) have conducted risk-based inspections of 261 premises.

The firms have been identified based on risk criteria like number of drugs declared as 'Not of Standard Quality', complaints, criticality of the products, etc. Based on findings of inspections, more than 200 actions like issuance of show cause notices, stop production order, suspension, cancellation of licences /product licences etc., have been taken by the State Licensing Authorities as per the provisions of the Drugs Rules 1945, the minister stated.

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