To combat the sale of fake and substandard medicines in the state, the West Bengal government on Friday issued six guidelines for drug sellers and wholesalers.

Here are the guidelines issued by the West Bengal Drug Control department:

1. Wholesalers must ascertain that the medicines they are purchasing are bought through proper channels of distribution, starting from the chartered financial analyst of the original company.

2. Wholesalers must check the validity of the licences of the sellers through the online licence portal available for most states while purchasing medicines and submit the same to the West Bengal drug control department for verification of outside state distributors.

3. While making payments to wholesalers located outside the state, wholesalers should check that the bank account details are necessarily in the name of the licensed firm concerned.

4. Wholesalers must mandatorily check the GST number and confirm that the firm is taking the GST credit.

5. All wholesalers must mandatorily check the QR codes of the 300 drugs included in Schedule H2. (Rules mandate that manufacturers of 300 specified drug formulations, listed in Schedule H2, print or affix a barcode or QR code on the label.)

6. All retailers must mandatorily check the QR codes of the 300 drugs included in Schedule H2 before purchasing from the wholesalers.

In April, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) had conducted a nationwide sample test of various medicines and found that 196 medicines failed in terms of their quality.

Recent raids by the West Bengal Directorate of Drug Control have uncovered large quantities of fake and substandard medicines from Titagarh and various locations in North 24 Parganas and Malda.

Investigations have revealed that some of these spurious drugs originated from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

The West Bengal government has also sought the cooperation of the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh governments in investigating the source of these fake drugs.

The state health department has established a hotline number – 9928951/ (033 2225-2213/033 2225-2214) – for citizens to report suspected fake or substandard medicines.