Causing intense surprise, more than 50,000 retail and wholesale pharmacists and chemists in Maharashtra on Friday joined the all-India strike called by the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists Associations (AIOCDA) in support of various demands.
Furthermore, Sandeep Nangia, president of The Retailers and Distributors Chemist Association (RDCA) said that they have decided to observe a day-long token strike against the unjustified policies of the government. Nevertheless, medical shops at hospitals and nursing homes will remain open during the bandh so that emergency services are not paralyzed and inconvenience is not caused to the general public. In fact, the association has several demands, which include maintenance of trade margins of medicines and not to decline it in the forth-coming Drugs (Price Control) Order 2013 considering the rising operational costs.
According to the Pharmaceutical Wholesalers and Retailers Association (PWRA) president Dilip A. Mehta, around 7,500 retail and wholesale pharmacists from Mumbai are also taking part in the nationwide agitation involving around 700,000 retail and wholesale pharmacists.
Mehta added that they want the margins of the retail chemists to be maintained in the proposed new drug policy, and oppose foreign direct investment in this sector. Moreover, the PWRA has demanded that in Maharashtra, the issue of appointing a full-time chemist in all pharmacy shops must be resolved amicably without harassment by the Food and Drugs Administration.
Mehta declared that they also demand that they should not be victimised for fake or sub-standard drugs since they do not know what is contained in the packages that are sold while they also strongly oppose Local Body Tax in Maharashtra. Therefore, all chemist shops, including those operating round-the-clock, have remained shut from midnight onwards in response to the strike call, inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of customers already suffering due to the four-day anti-Local Body Tax strike in the state.
As a concluding factor, Friday's token stir by AIOCDA has the support of more than two dozen affiliated pharmacists' and chemists' organisations across the state, including retailers, wholesalers and distributors.
It's been an age old factor that strike have always been playing a dominant role in the chaotic national scenario where in we don't realize that at the end of the day we are torturing ourselves and the humankind to be specific! Finally, we are only the looser!
Let us realize now!
(AW:Samrat Biswas)
