Mumbai: Asserting that medical shopowners should not be made victims of undue cancellation of licenses, Maharashtra Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Vidya Thakur said that state government will give a second chance to all those against whom action was taken by the previous UPA regime.

"There are around 7,000 medical shops against whom action had been taken by the Food and Drugs Administration department. These shop owners are meeting me everyday and asking for justice. I have decided to hold hearing of each case and resolve the issue as early as possible," stated Thakur, who is also the minister for Consumer Protection.

"It is of utmost importance to follow the rules and regulations set up by the FDA department. For instance, if a medicine has to be stored in a refrigerator at the specific temperature all the time, shop owners have to do it.

There are no two ways about it. "If the previous government had been too stringent on shop owners, we will give them a second chance. But they will be warned against committing the same mistake again," she said.

Criticising the previous regime, Thakur said that the government had failed to resolve the issues faced by shop owners. "I am taking a review of pending files of such cases everyday. Hearings on such cases will start very soon. We now have a huge backlog of cases where issues were not resolved by the previous government. We will soon look into all their problems," Thakur said.