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Nation Posted On Friday, July 23, 2010 | Agencies
Lucknow, July 23:
From Viagra to birth control pills and from diet control to body building and sleeping pills. All is available for online purchase on the website of UP government's Mid Day Meal Authority.
Surprised. Just login at http://www.upmdm.org/ and click "action on feed back" column. You will come across number of links to websites selling drugs online. Host of medical drugs which are used for a ‘kick' are also available. All these are the scheduled drugs which cannot be sold without prescription by a doctor but can easily be purchased through the links provided in the Authority's website.
Of course the Authority is not selling the drugs. Instead, somebody seems to have hacked the website or there is some virus which replaced the "comments" posted in the "feed back column" with the "links to the online drug selling websites". When the matter was brought to the notice on Monday, Authority's additional director Santosh Kumar Rai immediately issued direction to tackle the problem. The links were deleted within an hour but by Thursday evening over 1600 new links appeared in the website and they kept on increasing with every hour.
Although the Authority's staff deny any involvement into the malpractice, it has exposed poor monitoring of the website, particularly that section through which the Authority directly communicates with the Aam Aadami (common man). Personnel deployed to oversee the most important section -- feed back -- seems to have not taken their job seriously. Had they been regularly monitoring the feed back posted on the website, the flaw would have been detected easily and at the early stage, thus saving the Authority from a major embarrassment.
The serious part of the story is that the drugs available for online purchase without medical prescription include Sildenafil Citrate, sold as Viagra, Revatio and under various other trade names, is a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Also available are Vardenafil, an oral drug that is used to treat impotency. And, Isotretinoin, a medication used for the treatment of severe acne. Drugs used as an appetite suppressant such as the Sibutramine and the Phendimetrazine to treat obesity are also available. The links of Ritalin used as central nervous system stimulant, anti-depressants like Sertraline Hydrochloride, Testosterone pills widely used for enhancing muscles and body building, sedatives like Ambien used for the short-term treatment of insomnia among other drugs can also be found.
The Uttar Pradesh Mid Day Meal Authority was constituted by the state government in 2006 for better operation, management and monitoring of the mid day meal scheme. The Authority functions under the overall administrative and supervisory control of the basic education department, Government of UP. The mid day meal is an ambitious scheme to enhance enrolment of children in schools, check drop out rate by providing nutritious food to the students. The programme is also used as a vehicle for inculcation of hygienic habits, discipline, and spirit of equality among children, as also for providing them work experience. The government spends over Rs 900 crore of tax payers money on the scheme.
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Friday, September 03, 2010