Govt cracks down on pharmacists gaming the system; regulator told to check faculty, student attendance at college

The PCI has been told to verify if pharmacy colleges are adhering to and implementing the Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS). Many pharmacists have been found to have creating fake profiles using the same Aadhaar or PAN number and working as faculty in institutions.

The Union health ministry in a notification said that PCI, the regulator, may access the attendance data of officials, faculty and students of council-approved pharmacy colleges online from the centralized AEBAS.

Also read | Govt framing norms for human bone processing, storage; plans national registry

“Pharmacy Council of India may access the attendance data of officials, faculty and students of the Pharmacy Council of India-approved pharmacy colleges online from the centralized Aadhar Enabled Biometric Attendance System and shall adhere to the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, rules, regulations, or guidelines made thereunder and directions issued with respect to the use of Aadhaar authentication as laid down by the Unique Identification Authority of India or Central Government from time to time," stated the notification dated 21 March.

A senior official from PCI said, “The Council is very serious about quality of education. However, most of the private pharmacy colleges are violating the norms. There have been multiple instances of faking profile of faculties, and forged attendance. We have directed the colleges to strictly implement Aadhaar based biometric attendance. But we do not have the access of attendance data to validate it. To keep a close watch on the functioning of the pharmacy schools, it has now been notified that PCI can now have the accessibility to the attendance data (both students & faculties).

Also read | PLI boost: Cancer patients can hope for affordable drugs in India

“We get a lot of complaints such as unavailability of faculties, less number of students attending classes, faculties not getting salaries. With access to the records, the Council aims to solve at least 80% of the problem," the official said.

Last year, around 718 new diploma and degree institutions were granted approval under the Pharmacy Act, 1948, and the Council conducted 1,976 inspections of diploma, degree, Pharm.D., M.Pharm and B.Pharm (Practice) institutions.

For pharmacy, India has 5,669 approved institutions for diploma and 2,858 institutions offering degree courses.

Queries sent to the health ministry remained unanswered.

Also read | For small drugmakers playing fast and loose with quality, trouble is on way