"Weak procurement due diligence by healthcare providers is as much a governance failure as manufacturing of spurious drugs." Critically examine in light of recent incidents.

A "spurious drug" is defined under Section 17B of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 as an imitation or falsely labelled substitute [1]. Such drugs reach patients only when a distribution chain accepts them, and recent rackets — including the Bengaluru counterfeit cancer-drug network reportedly supplying over 90 hospitals and clinics — show that careless institutional procurement is a genuine, though not equal, governance failure.

Procurement laxity as a governance failure

• Demand-side enabler: fake cancer drugs and ICU injections were allegedly sold at nearly 50% discounts — abnormal pricing that routine verification should have flagged.
• Statutory duty, not mere negligence: purchase from licensed dealers and maintenance of purchase records are obligations under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 [2]; ignoring them is regulatory non-compliance.
• Unused safeguards: QR/barcode authentication, mandatory for the top 300 brands and extended to vaccines, antimicrobials and anti-cancer drugs under Schedule H2 [3], fails if buyers never scan.
• Ethical accountability: hospitals hold patient trust flowing from the Article 21 right to health; diligence cannot be outsourced to the regulator.

Why the burden cannot rest on buyers alone

• Information asymmetry: expertly repackaged drugs with authentic-looking labels and invoices are undetectable without laboratory testing.
• Regulatory gap: unlicensed repackaging units operate undetected; CDSCO and State Drugs Controllers do conduct risk-based inspections [4], but coverage remains thin.
• Federal fragmentation: state-bound enforcement confronts networks spanning Karnataka, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
• Structural price pressure: small hospitals with weak bargaining power chase discounts.

The statement is therefore largely valid but needs calibration: manufacture remains the primary offence, attracting imprisonment up to life [1], while procurement negligence is the permissive condition. The way forward lies in mandatory QR-code verification at the point of institutional purchase, a nationally networked drug regulator with real-time inspection data, and pooled transparent procurement for smaller providers — aligning enforcement with SDG-3's promise of safe, quality medicines for all.