Four panels of associations of pharmacy professionals in Telangana gear up for council election

September 9, 2023

Four associations of registered pharmacists in Telangana are stepping up preparations for the state pharmacy council election which will complete the election process in the next 65 days.

The notification for electing six members from the registered pharmacists was published last week by the returning officer.

According to the election schedule, the nomination forms were issued on September 4 through the council’s website and it will be available on the site till the 12th of this month. The council has started receiving the filled up nominations from 6th onwards and will continue to receive upto 5 pm on September 14. Scrutiny of the nomination papers will take place from 12 noon on September 15 and withdrawal of the nominations can be done on the next day from 12 noon onwards.

The final list of candidates will be displayed on the website at 5 pm on September 16. The council will start the work for dispatching ballot papers from 10 am on September 19 to 21st and receive the filled-up nominations from the candidates upto 5 pm on November 9 which will be the last date for receipt of nominations. The counting of voting will take place on November 10 and the result will be announced soon after the counting is over.

Meanwhile four major associations of pharmacy professionals have started preparing to contest the election and will finalize their list of candidates. Sources close to TSPC have informed Pharmabiz that about 45 independent candidates have already filed their nominations and the council has started the process of receiving them.

The state branch of the Association of Pharmacy Teachers of India (APTI) will announce their candidates on Saturday and file nominations on Monday, said the association president Dr. Krishna Mohan.

Dr Veerareddy Prabhakar Reddy, president of the Telangana Registered Pharmacist Association (TRPhA) said he is one of the candidates to be fielded by his association and other five members will file nominations from Saturday onwards.

Members of the state branch of the Indian Pharmacy Graduates Association (Telangana IPGA) are trying to field their president G Koteeswara Rao as a candidate and if he wins he will be elected president of the TSPC. Koteeswara Rao said the election work of the association will be in a secret mode, so more news about it cannot be divulged at present.

However the most significant and biggest association of pharmacists in Telangana is the Pharmacists’ Welfare Association of Telangana (PWAT) which is a wing of the state chemists and druggists association (TCDA) having a membership of 35,000 registered pharmacists. TCDA will not field the candidates as representatives of the chemist body, but as working pharmacists. All TCDA shops have registered pharmacists to manage the pharmacies, so the association has formed a separate body under its roof for the pharmacist’s welfare, said R. Sreenivas, president of the TCDA who is a nominated member to the state pharmacy council.

“I am also a pharmacist, but I am not contesting the election this time. Our chemist body has decided to field candidates from our own pharmacist association and we will support them. Our aim is to capture the power of the state pharmacy council. The president, secretary and the treasurer of the Telangana CDA are registered pharmacists, but none of us is contesting. If I were not a member nominated by the state government, I would have filed a nomination. My tenure ends in January next year,” said Sreenivas.  

He said TCDA has 45,000 community pharmacies as members, out of which 35,000 have proprietor pharmacists. The total number of voters for the council election is near about 53,000, he added.

PHARMABIZ.com