One significant initiative took by Ram Vilas Paswan, the former Union minister for chemicals, during his term was to launch Jan Aushadhi Project in August 2008 to make available quality generic drugs through government supported medical stores. By establishing the generic store under the project, preferably in the premises of the district hospitals, the ministry wanted to ensure quality medicines to the poor people at affordable prices. By selling drugs with their chemical names, prices are bound to be far cheaper than the highly expensive branded products aggressively promoted by most pharma companies. In a market where almost 80 per cent of the drugs are outside price control, the Jan Aushadhi can be a great relief to millions of poor patients if it is effectively implemented. The Department of Pharmaceuticals has already identified 300 widely used drugs belonging to 16 therapeutic categories to be sold through the generic stores. The initial target of the programme was to open at least 100 generic stores in one year in various parts of the country. But, only 25 stores could be opened until January this year because of lack of adequate support from the state governments. The Department's aim is to set up at least one generic drug store in each district of the country.
For the success of a nationwide project like this, support and cooperation of the state governments is very critical. Even after one and a half years of the launch of the Project, only a few state governments of Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana have come forward to set up generic stores. This is despite the DOP's request to chief secretaries of most of the states to support the project. Although Jan Aushadhi did not receive the desired response from the states in the first year, the Department has not given up hope. It is planning to involve the state marketing federations to give a push to the project. The DoP has already roped in 'Confed' cooperative society of Rajasthan for setting up the generic drug stores in that state. In the first phase, nearly 100 of the total 208 branches of the Confed are expected to be associated to run these stores. Other state governments also need to be convinced to involve their marketing federations to get into this venture. The most encouraging response to the project so far is the Rajasthan government's recent directive to the doctors in the government hospitals of the state to prescribe generic drugs. This gesture is extremely important to the success of the project as most of the sales in medical stores are prescription driven. If physicians in all the state government hospitals are motivated to prescribe generic drugs, the project is going to be a grand success.