For every challenge we face - unemployment, poverty, crime, income growth, income inequality, productivity, competitiveness - a great education is a major component of the solution. From Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi or any prime minister of India cannot fulfil commitment of employment because they do not know how. They do not know demand supply chain.  Indian pharmaceutical industry is providing 10 million jobs for skilled and unskilled workers.

              There are 1 million registered pharmacists in India and require 4 million pharmacies as of now.  It’s a need of the hour to change pharmacy syllabus to open up huge job opportunity and the change is one year industrial training. Currently 1 month industrial training is requiring as a formality for Bachelor of pharmacy students and industry avoid taking them for industrial training because students might damage machineries. But once students come for full 12 months training then they behave positively and industrialists also get back benefit after training. Noteworthy after training they might be employed in the same company. 

              Those students who are not interested to continue as an employee they can enrol for diploma in clinical pharmacologist means they can work with hospitals along with different speciality doctors.  After MBBS doctors opt to go for speciality such as MD, MS and then for super speciality like Gastroenterologist, Neurologist etc. In Europe there is diploma in clinical pharmacologist course of six months to be specialist and super specialist.

              India is still not aware about what’s happening into the developed countries. Role of pharmacologist is limited here but in developed countries both pharmacologists and physicians go hand in hand for healthcare management.  Bachelor of pharmacy students can be trained for clinical pharmacologist and it would be easy for employment and the most important thing it is demanding skills.  May be 20% students will opt to go for further study like master in pharmacy or doctor in pharmacy. It’s a really good decision because we require professors and research scientists and these jobs are high in demand. 

             Most importantly pharmaceutical manufacturing companies and pharmacies require in huge quantity semi skilled workers for the post of assistant pharmacists. Especially Bachelor of Science, intermediate of science can be trained to grab the demand of semi skilled worker post after getting diploma in pharmacy.  Government can allow master of pharmacology students to get admission in diploma in clinical practise of 2 years and then they can practise as doctor. There are huge demands of doctors in India and there is less supply.  Indian pharmaceutical industry is supper power in producing generic medicine. Producing 20% of global demand. Producing 80% anti HIV medicine for global demand. Raw material manufacturing is gearing up in India in a big way and there would huge demand of skilled and semi skilled workers.

             There are huge no of clinical research organization and testing laboratories. There are huge no of packing materials factories, pharmacovigilance and regulatory service providing companies.  Being largest exporter of the world, Indian pharmaceutical industry requires huge no of skilled and semi skilled workers for export promotion department for regulatory and drug safety. Noteworthy, Indian pharmaceutical industry has USD 20 Billion market size in export of generic medicine.  CDSCO is the largest FDA of the world and they require more than 25000 skilled and non skilled workers along with state licensing authority.  Medical device and surgical sectors are a new area where huge no of manufacturing unit is required and they can generate employment parallel to medicine one.

             Cosmetics is another one of the core sector where huge opportunity of employment generation. Still we are very far behind herbal manufacturing in comparison to developed countries because we are not investing in clinical trials. Europeans are leading herbal medicine and supplements right now.  Government can take alternate medicine seriously and can open new colleges and hospitals of Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy etc for instant generation of employment. Nutraceutical industry is growing by 40% and new manufacturers are coming up in a big way. Hence there are immense opportunity and demand of skilled and non skilled workers. 

             Indian is one of the biggest markets of imported nutraceuticals, protein powders, and baby care products. We can plan manufacturing these products in India with same quality standard. Players and gym going people is main buyer of protein powder.  RDM is ready with proposal as how we can generate 5 million jobs in pharmaceutical and healthcare industry every year. We do not want donation from government to create jobs. It is responsibility of public to come forward for resolving many untouched issues.  India requires pharmacy policy and pharma policy in such a way that they can help to bridge the gap of demand and supply of employment.

Mohammad Shahbaz Alam