The Indian government is all set to expand its campaign to ensure access to medicines for all by opening at least 40 more Jan Aushadhi generic stores (peoples' medicine stores) before March this year and at least 100 stores in one year time.

The first Jan Aushadhi generic store was opened in Amritsar on November 25 last year, as part of the affordable drug for all campaign begun by the newly created department of pharmaceuticals under the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers.

The second such store was opened at Shastri Bhavan in Delhi recently. After the opening of the store Chemicals minister Ram Vilas Paswan told newsmen that the target is to open generic stores in all the districts of the country by 2012 in four phases. He also said sales at the first store, opened at Amritsar in Punjab were encouraging so far.

Many state governments have evinced keen interest in opening stores and the centre had already written to the state governments in this regard. Haryana government has agreed to open generic stores in each district and the first one will be opened at Gurgaon this month itself.

Also, Rajasthan government has agreed to open flagship generic stores and the first one will be inaugurated by February 27, according to pharma department secretary Ashok Kumar.

Besides, states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Chattisgarh also will be opening the stores soon. Punjab government will be opening the stores at Bhatinda, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Mohali by March, the minister said.

Paswan said he will soon be calling the meeting of State chief ministers and health secretaries to promote the generic stores and also to generate more prescriptions for unbranded generic drugs. Quality aspect of the medicines was being taken care well, he noted.

The government's initiative to make drugs affordable to the poorer sections of the society in India by opening up unbranded generic drug stores named Jan Aushadhi has received a boost of late as several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), charitable bodies and cooperatives have expressed interest to join the campaign.

After the government invited expression of intent from the interested parties in December, the department received over 50 applications from NGOs, charitable bodies, cooperatives and other agencies to run the stores in different parts of the country.

The target is to make available 350 unbranded medicines in the stores, to be run by state governments, cooperatives and NGOs across the country. 10 tablets pack of ciprofloaxcin (250mg) is sold at Rs 10.40 against the market price of Rs 55. Likewise, nimesulide 100mg pack is available at the store for Rs 2.50 against the market rate of Rs 25,'' Paswan said, adding that still it did not incur loss to the manufacturers.