After the much-hyped launching with ambitious targets, the Jan Aushadhi stores which was the pet project of former chemicals minister Ram Vilas Paswan is still to take-off as desired and is running well behind the schedule, apart from being plagued by a number reasons including shortage of medicines.
Though the Department of Pharmaceuticals till now maintained that 30 generic outlets were operational in different parts of the country, a recent answer in the Parliament shows that only 14 have been opened so far. The target set by the department was to open at least 100 stores in one year after it was launched in November last.
When the project aimed at ensuring affordable unbranded generic drugs to the people by opening up a store in each district by the end of the current 11th Plan was launched, the government maintained that it would open at least 40 stores by the end of March last year. The department officials continuously claimed that 30 stores were in operation so far.
However, according to the statement in the Parliament, only 14 have been opened so far. Punjab leads the list with eight stores- at Amritsar, Mohali, Bhatinda, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala, Faridkot and Moga. Haryana has two stores in Panchkula and Gurgaon. In Delhi, the lone store is at Shastri Bhawan, the chemicals ministry headquarters. Rajasthan has three stores, with two in Jaipur and one in Alwar, according to the statement.
As per the statement of Minister of State for chemicals Srikant Kumar Jena, the government is planning to open 270 stores during the current of 2009-10, that is also well below the original target.
Meanwhile, it is also learnt that many States like West Bengal and Kerala are not so keen to open such stores. Though the Department of Chemicals has written to all the States with the proposal, many have expressed their unwillingness to take up the project for which the State government also has to find resources and budgetary support.
According to sources in the small scale sector which was willing to officially associate with the programme, the multinational companies were at play to delay and derail the project that can eat into their revenues. The stores which are also operational could not make available all the listed drugs, according to reports.