Directorate Of Food And Drugs Administration

Introduction :

The overall quality control of the drugs and food manufactured, distributed and sold in the State of Goa is exercised by the Directorate of food and Drugs Administration as part of the Health Care Organisation under the Department of Public Health in the State Government.The Directorate of Food and Drugs Administration mainly discharges the statutory functions involved in the implementation of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 & Rules there under; the Food Safety and Standards Rules 2011 & Regulations 2011 there under. Apart from the duties involved in the enforcement of these two main Acts and Rules, other Acts, Rules and Orders towards which Administration has the responsibilities are as under :

The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act, 1954 and Rules 1955.
The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
Goa Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances Rules, 1987.
The Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013.
The Pharmacy Act, 1948.
Food Safety and Standard Act 2006 and Rules/Regulations 2011.
Cigarettes & other Tobacco product ( Prohibition of Advertisement & Regulation of Trade, Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act 2003
The Infact Milk Substitute, Feeding bottle and infant food (Regulation of Production Supply and Distribution) Act 2003.

Our Vision, Mission and Values

To strive for pharmaceutical excellence and health by ensuring the availability of safe, effective and quality food and drugs to the public and our endeavor to continue with the time tested tradition of sustaining Goa Food and Drugs Administration as one of the best FDA in the Country and pool into all sincere efforts to place FDA – Goa on the global map as one of the best regulatory institution.

Role of FDA

The Directorate of Food and Drugs Administration is entrusted with the task of implementing and enforcing all the Food and Drugs related legislation, which includes controlling the quality of food articles and drugs, manufactured and sold within the State as well as manufactured outside the State but sold in the State.

The Directorate through its independent Food and Drugs Testing Laboratory is entrusted with the responsibilities in analysis of various food and drugs, samples drawn by the Food Officers and Drugs Inspectors respectively, liquor samples, referred by the Excise Department, Narcotic samples referred by the Police and Customs Department as well as analysis of imported food articles referred by the Mormagoa Port Health Authorities.

The Directorate also regulates the prohibition on the sale, manufacture and stocking of injurious food article viz food article containing tobacco under the Goa Public Health (Amendment) Act 2005, which includes Gutka, etc.

Food & Drugs Control Organization

Drugs:

Licensing of drug manufacturing and sales establishments.
Licensing of drug approved testing laboratories.
Approval of drug formulations for manufacture.
Grant of certificates – WHO-GMP COPP, Validity, Performances, etc
Monitoring of quality of Drugs & Cosmetics, manufactured in the State and those marketed in the state.
Detection of any manufacture and sale of drugs without licenses;
Verifying the compliances of the conditions of licenses;
Verifying sale of drugs on prescription;
Verifying the availability of Registered Pharmacists at Retailers;
Issue of permits for the sale and consumption of narcotics medicinal drugs;
Investigation and prosecution in respect of contravention of legal provisions.
Administrative actions.
Pre- and post- licensing inspection.
Recall of sub-standard drugs.
Verifying availability of any banned drugs, spurious drugs, etc
Screening of any objectionable advertisements relating to drugs;

Cosmetics:

Licensing of cosmetics manufactured in the State;
Approval for cosmetics formulations;
Monitoring the quality of cosmetics manufactured in the State as well as those sold in the State;
Verifying the compliances of the conditions of licences;
Pre-and post inspections;
Investigation and prosecution in respect of contravention of legal provisions.
Administrative actions.

Food:

Licensing of all food establishments dealing in food articles;
Licensing of all hotels, restaurants, eating houses, fast food, street food vendors, etc;
Monitoring the quality of food being manufactured in the State as well as those marketed in the State;
Verifying the compliances of food articles to the law;
Enforcing the ban on tobacco related food articles;
Conducting awareness programs to educate the masses, vendors as well as consumers;
Investigation and prosecution in respect of contravention of legal provisions relating to adulterated food articles or dealing in prohibited injurious food articles;

Laboratory

The Directorate has its independent Food & Drugs Laboratory for testing of food and drugs samples at Bambolim, which was constructed under the Capacity Building Project of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India assisted by the World Bank; the said independent laboratory was constructed and commissioned for operation since March 2007.

The building comprises of the ground floor catering to the food analysis, whilst the first floor caters for the drugs analysis; Both the Food & drugs laboratory section have been adequately equipped with all the modern essential and sophisticated equipments and instruments necessary for testing of food and drugs samples.

The laboratory consists of separate independent staff of Senior Scientific Officer, Junior Scientific Officer, Chemist and Assistant Chemists, laboratory Attendant and Laboratory Technicians separately for the food and drugs sections.

The laboratory conducts analysis of food and drugs samples referred by the Food Safety Officers as well as Drugs Inspectors under the respective food and drugs laws; In addition imported food articles samples are referred by the Port Health Authorities, liquor samples by the State Excise Department and the narcotic samples by the Police and Customs department. On an average, annually 600 food samples and 800 drugs samples are analyzed by the Laboratory

Department :