According to an order by the government’s top advisory body on drugs, medical shops which have a 'Chemists & Druggists' signboard will have to replace it with a 'Pharmacy' signboard.
There has always been some confusion amongst people as to what do you call a medical store, a pharmacy, chemist or something else. Commonly, people refer to medical stores as 'chemists' but according to the new rule, the signboards will now read 'pharmacy'.
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According to Dr S Eswara Reddy, drugs controller general of India, stores were using different nomenclature and the body wanted to bring in uniformity. Globally, the word 'pharmacy' is used to refer to medical stores and they wanted to replicate that.
The Drug and Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) has approved changing the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules to bring uniformity to medical store signboards. The term ‘chemists and druggists’ was coined in 1945 and is quite old and has lost relevance and also, at present, the word ‘drug’ is looked down upon and as addiction for chemicals, hence, the board felt it is not suitable to refer a professional pharmacist as a druggist or chemist.
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