I am privileged to Chair the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) India. I have limited technical knowledge on the science of medicines, as my career started as a lecturer in History and then moved on through varies hierarchies of India’s Civil Service. But this background provided to me the opportunity to serve the country in various capacities at several locations like the remote regions of Jammu and Kashmir, the Lakshadweep islands and even abroad, as minister Community Affairs in our Embassy in Washington DC, and included serving in the national capital as Secretary to the Government of India, in the Ministries of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and of Textiles and of Panchayati Raj. I will call upon this experience to help me guide the board members of PSM India on how best we can play a productive role in creating awareness amongst patients about safety in medicines and empowering them with the knowledge that will enable them to access safe medicines and make an informed choice based on quality and standard.

Though India is indeed the largest democracy in the world and is also known to be a nation which is developing at a fast pace there are many areas such as Healthcare and Education where much remains to be done. Accessibility and affordability of quality health care are no doubt still a major issue for the majority of the population in India, which has been further compounded by issues relating to safety and quality of medicines made accessible to the patients. The role proposed to be played by PSM India is therefore essential and every single citizen of the country must partner this initiative to ensure its success.

And so, every citizen should work as a law enforcer and be a Whistle Blower. Under our existing laws Government is duty bound to allow access to such citizens and to protect them to enable them to expose the evil of the manufacture and distribution of Spurious Medicines. Taking note of the seriousness of the impact of such Spurious Drugs on Society as an threat to national security, endangering as it does the lives of present and future generations of Indians, every effort should be made to identify such unscrupulous elements and ensure that they are not only not allowed to flourish but also driven out of business and brought to account. I am also confident that the provisions of the Right to Information Act can be used as an effective means for exposing spurious drugs and, as a former Chief Information Commissioner, I would be happy to help devise a suitable procedure for accessing information to effectively combat the menace of spurious, counterfeit and falsified medicines in India.
                                                
The key objectives of PSM India are to create awareness among the citizens on aspects of safety in medicines and existence of spurious medicines in the supply chain. It is not important to understand the percentage of Spurious Medicines; what is important is that as long as the menace exists in any form, little or large, this is a threat to public health and needs our attention. I appeal to all citizens to exercise caution while purchasing medicines, never buy prescription medicines without proper prescriptions from registered medical practitioners and always insist on a receipt while purchasing medicines.