Opening a chain of retail medical stores for selling generic drugs under the Jan Aushadhi programme in 2008 was an excellent initiative on the part of Department of Pharmaceuticals. But the progress of this government initiative has been rather tardy even after five years. The Department was able to open only 157 generic stores so far in the country and out of that only 93 are currently functioning. As per the original plan, Department was to open 100 generic stores every year in various parts of the country for selling 300 widely used drugs belonging to 16 therapeutic categories through these stores. This was to be stepped up subsequently to all the 626 districts in the country by the end of 2011. This has not happened for various reasons. The Bureau of Pharma Public Sector Undertakings of India which is running the programme, has now worked out a new business plan for reviving Jan Aushadi with the target of opening 3000 generic stores during the 12th Plan Period. It is proposed to popularize the scheme in a few selected states and ensure availability of life saving and essential medicines at affordable prices to masses.
To make a people oriented programme like Jan Aushadi a success in a country like India, support of state governments, medical practitioners and other stakeholders is crucial. One of the main reasons for the slow progress of Jan Aushadi is the lack of this support from the state governments and medical profession. Perhaps, Gujarat is one state that has given some support by launching the Jan Aushadhi stores in a few government hospitals. The state government is also motivating doctors working in the government hospitals to prescribe unbranded generic medicines to the patients. Most of the other state governments have not extended such support to this programme as yet. However, state governments like Andhra and Kerala have launched their own subsidised medicine programme by setting up government owned chains providing both branded and unbranded drugs at 20 to 25 per cent lower than the market prices. These regional initiatives,no doubt, have their own merits but what is required is to make the national programme a success throughout the country so that generic drugs will be available at uniformly lower prices to all. Regular procurement of quality drugs at low prices is an important task for the success of this scheme. The department’s decision to source generic drugs from private sector manufacturers is thus a step in right direction. But the move to restrict such purchases to only from firms having an average annual turnover of Rs. 10 crore in the last three years is not fair. This will keep several small players having reputation of makers of quality drugs out of the programme. The procurement should not be too restrictive as that may discourage competition and lead to high procurement prices.