NDPS Act: how to keep a narcotics register that survives inspection

The NDPS Act 1985 requires every hospital that handles controlled substances to maintain a register of receipt, issue and balance. The State Drugs Controller can inspect this register at any time.

What inspectors check: every receipt has a source (supplier, batch, quantity, date). Every issue has a destination (patient, prescription, prescribing doctor, quantity, date). The balance at any point equals receipts minus issues. Corrections are noted, not overwritten.

Paper registers fail in predictable ways: entries are backdated, balances don't reconcile, pages are missing, and the register is "with the pharmacist who is on leave." A digital register eliminates most of these failure modes — if it's built correctly.

A correct digital narcotics register is append-only. No entry can be deleted or edited after save. Corrections are new entries with a reason field. Every entry records the user, timestamp and IP. The balance is computed, not manually entered. The register can be printed or exported for inspection in the format the inspector expects.

OneCity's pharmacy module maintains this register for every substance flagged as NDPS. Receipt entries link to GRN and supplier. Issue entries link to the patient prescription and prescribing doctor (by NMC registration number). The balance reconciles automatically. Export produces the register format inspectors recognise.

The register is only as good as the dispensing workflow. If the pharmacist can dispense a controlled substance without recording it in the register, the register is fiction. OneCity ties dispensing to the register — you can't issue without the entry.