The whistleblower scheme introduced by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has kick started with the Government getting tip-offs on about 15 cases of fake drugs. The Ministry had introduced the scheme in December 2009 in a bid to put an end to the menace of spurious drugs being sold in the market. According to the reward scheme, whistleblowers would get as much as Rs 25 lakh or 20 per cent of the value of the confiscated fake drugs.
The scheme is being implemented by the Drugs Controller General (India). Health Ministry sources said that the drug regulator is investigating the cases already reported and if the drugs seized during raids are found to be fake then the informer would be given a reward.
Similar reward schemes have been put in place by other Government agencies, including informers of income-tax evasion and illegal imports.
According to Government estimates 0.046 per cent of all medicines sold to customers are spurious. But an earlier survey of 10,000 samples, funded by the World Health Organisation and undertaken by the International Pharmaceutical Federation, had concluded that 3.1 per cent of drugs in India were counterfeit.
The Government had recently tightened laws for punishing offenders caught with spurious drugs. The amended law enhances the penalty for manufacturing spurious drugs to a minimum imprisonment of 10 years
