India proposes CCTV surveillance for prescription drug sales

The Indian Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has proposed amendments to the Drugs Rules, 1945, to strengthen the oversight of Schedule H, H1, and X prescription medicines. A key component of the draft notification is the mandatory installation of CCTV surveillance at retail medical stores to prevent unauthorized sales and improve transparency in the pharmaceutical supply chain. The proposal, which has received recommendations from the Drugs Technical Advisory Board, requires CCTV recordings to be preserved for at least three months. Wholesale dealers are currently excluded from this requirement.

In a separate regulatory development, the Department of Legal Metrology & Consumer Protection in Nagaland has issued directives for traders to strictly comply with the Legal Metrology Act, 2009. Authorities have prohibited the use of unverified or defective weighing and measuring instruments and mandated that all pre-packaged commodities include required declarations such as net quantity and maximum retail price (MRP).

Additionally, national efforts to modernize measurement standards include the installation of atomic clocks at five Regional Reference Standards Laboratories across India to provide highly precise reference time for calibration and standardization purposes.