Paper short abstract:

How can the development of AMR be analysed within a political assemblage of antibiotic production, disposing pharmaceutical effluent waste and bureaucratic relationships in Baddi, India?

Paper long abstract:

Baddi, located by the banks of the Sirsa river in Himachal Pradesh, India, is one of Asia’s biggest pharmaceutical hubs. Effluents from pharmaceutical manufacturing industries and antibiotic residues from human and agricultural overuse have led to antibiotic pollution of local water bodies, raising concerns that this may be increasing Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) in both human and animal pathogens. This paper seeks to explore the politics of institutions in antibiotic manufacturing and the subsequent development of AMR. It will draw on ethnography and observation at the local manufacturing sites, and open-ended interviews with bureaucrats, drug inspectors, scrap dealers and pharmaceutical managers. The aim of the paper is to establish crucial linkages between antibiotics as substance and waste as material in a political assemblage of institutions and actors purportedly working towards a healthy environment. In course of tracing AMR pathways in Baddi, this paper will address the following questions. How are antibiotics manufactured and distributed in local markets? How is the effluent waste from the pharmaceutical industry treated and disposed in water bodies? What roles do bureaucratic corruption, pharma statistics and “not of standard quality” drugs play in this scenario?