The Pharmacy Council of Telangana state (TSPC) is all set to go for the elections from October 19, 2023, for electing 6 executive council members among its overall 15-member body. There are 81 members in the fray who are contesting to be elected for the 6 posts of the council.

According to E. Yogananda, Registrar of TSPC (as seen in the image), the newly formed Telangana State Pharmacy Council was officially set up in the year 2018 after it got bifurcated from the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh State Pharmacy Council (APSPC) in the year 2015.

At present, the council is functioning with just 9 member executive members of whom 4 of them are ex-officio members from the Directorate of Medical Education (DME), the Director General of Drug Controller, Government Analysts, and one member from the Medical Council of Telangana. Remaining 5 members are nominated by the government from relevant fields such as Pharmacy Education, Pharma and Biotech Industry, Pharmacy Associations, and other allied associations.

Now that the existing body is functioning with just 9 members under a nominated president of Ramesh Reddy, the council is not able to make important decisions to implement the Pharmacy Act 1948 in a full-fledged manner. For instance to fill the additional posts in the Pharmacy council and to appoint Pharmacy inspectors, it is important for the council to send a proposal to the state government and accordingly, the government will allocate funds for the same.

“It’s been more than 5 years now that the state Pharmacy council is functioning without a full-scale body. In view of this, we do not have much power to make a decision or implement any new initiatives to upgrade and improve the pharmacy profession in the state. Even though there are provisions to appoint Pharmacy inspectors, we are not able to do it because, unless there is no elected body, it is hard to take any stern decision. Once the elections are over then TSPC will have a full body and then based on the resolutions of the new council body, we are expecting many initiatives will be taken to further improve the pharmacy profession in the state,” informed Yogananda, while speaking to BioSpectrum.

Currently, there are 55248 pharmacists that are registered under the TSPC and the council is facilitating the registrations and renewals of all the newly graduated candidates who have completed and passed their Diploma in Pharmacy, B.Pharmacy, M.Pharmacy and the 6 years integrated D- Pharmacy courses.  It is learned that there are more than 240 pharmacy colleges across the state, which produce more than 10,000 pharmacy professionals every year in the state.

Referring to the election schedule of the Pharmacy Council, Yogananda informed that at present the state government has appointed Hari Chandana Dasari, Director of the Ayush department, as the Returning Officer for the conducting the elections of the Pharmacy Council in the state.  The elections will commence on October 19 and will conclude on 9^th November 2023.

The polling will be conducted in a postal ballot form and all the registered pharmacists will be sent the ballot papers through registered post. The candidates must cast their votes on the postal ballots and send them to the concerned authorities before 5 pm, on November 9th the last date of polling and counting will be held the next day on November 10.

Amguth Raju