nagpur the central governments drug price control order dpco came into effect on july 29 and various essential drugs in the list are still not available in medical shops this artificial shortage of medicines has resulted due to the confusion among traders about the existing stock of these drugs while retailers are refusing to buy more listed drugs the stockists cannot return them to the manufacturers the food and drug administration fda has been directed by the drug controller general of india that the existing stocks need to be labelled with the new prices on the premises of superstockists under the supervision of company representatives however stockists feel labelling is not a practical solution as doing it manually is a tedious process besides exposing the process to tampering meanwhile the state chemists association has asked its members to not to buy any of the 348 listed drugs and return the purchased ones for which price control would be implemented in five phases only 150 products have been included in the first list announced on june 14 however we have told our members not to stock any of the medicines it is against our interest to buy them at a high price and sell at lower prices the government should have given a bigger window than 45 days to implement the order so that the purchased stock gets exhausted said ravi goyal president of nagpur chemists and druggists association he added that rs15 crore worth medicine has been returned to the stockists getting medicines at high prices is wrong but its evil not to get medicines at all we are not in the favour of relabelling it would be much simpler for the fda to display a list of new prices and ask retailers to sell the drugs accordingly said prince uppal former president of central india surgical dealers association cisda he agreed that 45 days is a short period for all stock from factories company depots wholesalers and retailers to be sold out he likened the situation to be punished for having a speedometer in ones vehicle instead of speeding there is no harm stocking medicines with old price tags until they are sold according to the dpco he explained agreeing with him senior distributor and president of nagpur superdistributors association cd jhambia said there needs to be a balance as far as such laws are concerned so that they are in the interest of people clear directions are required from the implementing authorities in this regard he suggested stamps stating not to be sold above dpco prices on the packages instead of relabelling general secretary of maharashtra sales and medical representatives msmra dattu deshpande said dpco would not really benefit the people calling it an eyewash he said there are plans to increase the prices by 10 per cent every year for fixing these prices market forces have been considered instead of expenses incurred in making and marketing the medicines it is a decision taken in the interest of