Spurious drugs in large quantities from China are finding their way into India setting off alarm bells in the government which has decided to crackdown on importers who were using forged documents and other means to sneak them in.
"There is an abject criminal and malafide attempt to import spurious drugs in the country originating from different sources and from different places in China," a senior health ministry official preferring anonymity said.
Fake drugs getting into the country every year are estimated to be in the range of a whopping Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion) to Rs 17,500 crore (Rs 175 billion), accounting for nearly 20 per cent of the size of the pharma industry which is about Rs 85,000 crore (Rs 850 billion).
Recently, Nigerian authorities had intercepted a consignment of fake drugs supposed to have been marketed from India. However, a probe showed that the medicines had been manufactured in China and imported through India.
As part of its strategy to unravel the bigger picture of the spurious drug importers, the government has referred the case of recent seizure of fake drugs at Chennai port, imported from China, to the CBI which has been asked to go into its entire ramification and also nail the culprits.
A consignment of bulk drug valued at about Rs 72 lakh was seized by Customs authorities at Chennai after it was suspected to have been imported from an unregistered source originating from China.
