{"id":65235,"date":"2026-05-19T17:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/punjabenews.com\/English\/?p=65235"},"modified":"2026-05-19T17:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:34:08","slug":"punjab-chemists-to-shut-shops-in-support-of-nationwide-strike-against-online-medicine-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/punjabenews.com\/English\/latest\/punjab-chemists-to-shut-shops-in-support-of-nationwide-strike-against-online-medicine-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Punjab chemists to shut shops in support of nationwide strike against online medicine sales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chandigarh: Availability of essential medicines across Punjab is likely to be severely affected on Wednesday as nearly 27,000 retail and wholesale chemists prepare to keep their shops shut in support of a nationwide strike called by the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists.<\/p>\n<p>The protest has been organised mainly against online sale of medicines and heavy discounting by e-pharmacy platforms, which traditional chemists claim is hurting small neighbourhood pharmacies that are unable to compete with such pricing.<\/p>\n<p>Chemists and druggists argue that unchecked growth of online medicine platforms is threatening the survival of local medical stores and disrupting the existing pharmaceutical retail network.<\/p>\n<p>The shutdown is expected to cause inconvenience to thousands of patients who depend on nearby pharmacies for daily medicines, emergency drugs and life-saving prescriptions.<\/p>\n<p>Retail pharmacy owners said the protest is aimed at drawing the Centre\u2019s attention towards regulating online medicine sales and ensuring fair competition for offline chemists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chandigarh: Availability of essential medicines across Punjab is likely to be severely affected on Wednesday as nearly 27,000 retail and wholesale chemists prepare to keep their shops shut in support of a nationwide strike called by the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists. The protest has been organised mainly against online sale of medicines [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[15096,15093,15094,15095],"class_list":["post-65235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-punjab","tag-medicine-sales","tag-punjab-chemists-to-shut","tag-shops-in-support-of-nationwide","tag-strike-against-online"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Punjab chemists to shut shops in support of nationwide strike against online medicine sales - PunjabENews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/punjabenews.com\/English\/latest\/punjab-chemists-to-shut-shops-in-support-of-nationwide-strike-against-online-medicine-sales\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Punjab chemists to shut shops in support of nationwide strike against online medicine sales - PunjabENews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chandigarh: Availability of essential medicines across Punjab is likely to be severely affected on Wednesday as nearly 27,000 retail and wholesale chemists prepare to keep their shops shut in support of a nationwide strike called by the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists. 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