The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has started issuing notices to those city-based hospitals, private doctors and pharmacists who have failed to provide information about TB patients being treated or served by them, a civic medical officer said on 11 February.

The civic body's medical officer of Health (MOH) Dr Raju Murudkar said it has been observed that the hospitals and doctors treating TB patients and also the medical shops selling medicines to them were not providing information about such patients despite instructions to them. "The Centre has made it mandatory for the civic bodies to maintain the database of such patients which becomes difficult in the absence of any information being provided by the hospitals and other stakeholders," he said.

The government has taken a serious view of the failures ordered action against such defaulters, he said. "The TMC has repeatedly reminded them and also held meetings with them to explain to them the importance of such database. Despite that there has been no improvement at all," he said. Hence, as a first step, the corporation has started issuing notices to the erring hospitals, doctors and medical shops from 10 February, Murudkar said. If despite all this, they continue to not give information, they may face serious action, he warned.