Pharmacy Colleges in India

Pharmacy Colleges in India are also known as Pharma colleges in India, B pharmacy colleges in India, M pharmacy colleges in India and Doctor of Pharmacy colleges in India. It is easy to distinguish that B.Pharmacy colleges in India are those which offer B.Pharm and M.Pharmacy colleges in India are those which offer M.Pharm course of education. There is no rule that the Pharmacy colleges can offer only masters or bachelors course of education, it is just to narrow down the search to a specific course. Pharmacy Colleges in India also offer Diploma and Doctorate Courses. All these were nonexistent before 1932. In 1932 only two institutes were offering a degree course in pharmacy, these were Banaras Hindu University under the leadership of late Dr. Prof. M.L. Shroff and U.D.C.T. at Bombay which was offering post-graduate B.Sc. (Technical.) course in Pharm. Science. The Pharmacy Act 1948 enacted on 04.03.1948 initiated a substantial effort towards pharmacy education. Establishment of Pharmacy council of India (PCI) on 09.08.1949 and subsequent motivation from government policies and regulations, pharmacy education developed. As per PCI, Indian Pharma industry ranks 4th in volume and 13th in value in the global pharmaceutical market with exports worth US Dollars 2.6 billion besides domestic sales amounting to over US Dollars 4 million.

Pharmacy council of India is a statutory body under the ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. It prescribes minimum standard of education required for qualifying as a pharmacist. PCI registration is a must for legal validity of the candidates’ license as pharmacists. As per PCI there are about 822 approved degree institutions, 666 approved institutes offering Diplomas and 120 Institutes offering both Pharm.D. and Pharm.D. (Post Baccalaureate) courses.

A pharmacy college of India requires needs to maintain certain standards for becoming eligible for its establishment and governance.

Some of these conditions are:

• Approval letter from the State Government permitting it to start a course in Pharmacy
• An institution has to submit No Objection Certificate /permission letter from AICTE / UGC and other statutory bodies for starting a pharmacy course
• Consent/approval of University/Examining Authority
• To follow the pay scales of teaching staff as prescribed by the All India Council for Technical Education from time to time
• Affiliation Fee of Rs. 15,000/per annum, per course (Diploma/Degree)
• Inspection Fee of Rs. 25,000/ per course for first inspection including second inspection if required.

But pharmacy is subject which is professional as well as technical. Technical education in India comes under AICTE which is another government statutory body. Therefore the subject is placed under the control of dual statutory agencies and as such separate regulatory requirements of PCI and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). This creates confusion and has led to dismissal of various pharmacy institutes. Diploma in Pharmacy is controlled by the PCI, B Pharm is regulated by AICTE and the PG courses are run and controlled by universities empowered under the UGC. At the university level there is no role of PCI regarding the minimum qualifications for the PG courses and its syllabus. The reason for this being that - The Pharmacy Act 1948, section 10 and ER (education regulation) in 1991 did not prescribe the minimum qualification or the syllabus pattern for the degree, PG and PhD programmes in pharmacy. There is a need to draft common education regulations for all courses in pharmacy under one umbrella with one controlling authority, just like MBBS.