The government has identified a huge number of pharmaceutical companies in the MSME sector that are manufacturing substandard drugs, according to a report by the Economic Times (ET). A person with knowledge of the matter told ET that over 65 percent of MSME enterprises were found to be manufacturing drugs that were not of standard quality (NSQ) during risk-based inspections of pharma companies undertaken since December last year. Out of the total MSME units inspected, 30 percent were issued stop production orders (SPO), while samples from 68 percent of MSME companies have failed. This is alarming. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization and state drug inspectors have been conducting these inspections as part of a massive nationwide crackdown on spurious and substandard medicines. This followed a controversy over alleged made-in-India cough syrups being responsible for the deaths of children in Gambia. Currently, Phase IV of the risk-based inspections is being conducted.