Under the amended regulation, registered pharmacists with experience can now apply for a drugs license to run chemist shops in rural and urban areas, according to Punjab health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu.

Medical dialogues had earlier reported that the Indian Pharmacist Association had met with the Member of Parliament Chirag Paswan demanding immediate reforms in the Pharmacy profession in India, pointing out to major threats and evils concerning the pharmacy profession in the country.

As per a recent media report in the Times of India, Punjab Health Minister, Balbir Singh Sidhu mentioned that under the amended regulation, registered pharmacists with a certain experience can now apply for a drugs license to run chemist shops in rural and urban areas. Further, he added that licenses for the selling of veterinary medications, medical instruments, dental products, diagnostic kits and reagents, implants, surgical goods, and super distributors had also been granted.

Simultaneously, in order to retain tight regulation over the selling of habit-forming products, stocking limits on the right types of drugs – codeine, dextropropoxyphene, diphenoxylate, nitrazepam, buprenorphine, pentazocine, and oral dosage formulations of tramadol and tapentadol – were imposed, with the exception of justified medical use.

According to Sidhu, some amendments to the grant of drug licenses had been made due to changes in constitutions/premises, adding that new drug license applications must be submitted online via the Punjab government's company first portal's single window scheme.

He made a point of saying that the government had given the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a boost by growing the number of drugs control officers to 60. The minister claimed that the state government had introduced substantial changes to drug testing facilities and had developed a state-of-the-art drug testing laboratory in Kharar.

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