A unique CCC initiative

Pharmacists at work at the City Corporation Pharmaceutical laboratory at Sagorika Road, top. The factory building, bottom left, and samples of the products, right. . PHOTO: STAR

Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury inaugurated the Pharmaceuticals on July 7.

Chittagong City Corp-oration (CCC) has set up the pharmaceutical plant on two bighas of land of its own at a cost of Tk 5 crore at Sagarika area under Pahartali Police Station with a view to catering the medicinal needs of its hospitals, maternity, clinics and dispensaries.

The industry is the first of its kind in the country established by a local government body and the brain behind the unique initiative is city father ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury.

"The mayor first talked about such a plant in May last year and engaged experts to conduct a feasibility study in this regard," said SM Shahidur Rahman, project director of the City Corporation Pharm-aceuticals.

After completion of the feasibility study, the mayor approved the project and the CCC started preparations to set up the plant, he said.

Shahidur said, "The vast land where the plant is built was an abandoned site of the corporation for long and usually scraps were being stockpiled there."

Recruitment of necessary manpower, including production officers, pharmacists, quality control officers, microbiologists and other staffs, and construction of infrastructures are almost completed, he said.

Besides, sufficient machinery and equipment have also been procured. The United Kingdom, Germany, India and Japan have supplied quality-based machinery while production-based machinery was procured from China, India and local markets.

The project director said initially about 16 categories of medicines keeping quality in prime consideration would be manufactured in the industry.

The medicines are: Citamol Suspension, Citamol Tablet, Citacid Suspension, Citacid Tablet, Citacin Syrup, Citacin Tablet, Citazol Suspension, Citazol Tablet, Citaron Syrup, Citacough Syrup, Citaflox Capsule-250, Citaflox Capsule-500, Cita-R Tablet, Citapflex Capsule, Citamox Dry Syrup and Citamox Capsule.

The plant will go for marketing its products in early September with the approval of drug administration, he said. "We are now manufacturing the samples of 16 categories and examining their quality and viability and after the drug administration's final approval we would start marketing," he added.

"The CCC-run hospitals and clinics here has a demand for medicines worth around Tk 2 to Tk 2.50 crore a year and we believe we will be able to meet the demand," said city corporation's Chief Health Officer Dr Sarfaraj Khan Chowdhury. Dr Sarfaraj is also one of the six members of the plant's Board of Management.

Dr Sarfaraj said "they will sell the surplus products commercially after meeting the demand of city corporation." "If everything is favourable, the plant will profit Tk 3 to Tk 3.50 crore in the first year.

Tk 10 crore might be required to have the plant a full-fledged one, which, he said, won't take long time to be implemented.