Early this month, the Union minister of state for chemicals & fertilizers, Hansraj Ahir came out with an announcement in Delhi stating that the Centre would open 1000 more government generic stores to strengthen its Jan Aushadhi programme of promoting quality generic medicines in the country. Jan Aushadhi was an ambitious project launched by former Union chemicals minister Ramvilas Paswan to make available quality generic drugs in the country by opening at least one Jan Aushadhi store in each of the 630 districts. The government commenced the project on November 25, 2008 when it opened first Jan Aushadhi store at Amritsar in Punjab. Although 150 more such stores were opened subsequently over the years only 85 are working currently. Under the programme, 319 essential drugs were identified to be supplied through these stores, but only 85 drugs belonging to 11 therapeutic groups could be sold due to various reasons. The Bureau of Pharma Public Sector Undertakings of India has been designated as the nodal agency for running the programme. The programme, however, did not make much progress as expected even after seven years of its launch on account of the half hearted approach of the main stakeholders.

With the government’s plan to revive the Jan Aushadhi once again, as indicated by the chemicals minister, the Department of Pharmaceuticals has decided first to expand the number of drugs under the programme to 504 including the 85 available now so that more drugs required for treating lifestyle diseases could be covered under Jan Aushadhi. These 504 drugs include medicines for treating hypertension, diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases and some antibiotics. To make a people oriented programme like Jan Aushadhi 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 Aushadhi is the lack of this support from the state governments and medical profession. State governments have to motivate doctors working in the government hospitals and public health centres to prescribe generic medicines to the patients. Currently no state governments are doing this. However, state governments like Andhra, Tamil Nadu 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. No doubt, these regional initiatives have their own merits as it can supplement the Centre’s initiative. But to make a national programme like Jan Aushadhi a success, all state governments and the medical fraternity there have to come forward and support it. Availability of required quantity of drugs in time in these stores is another key factor that determine the success of the programme. The main source of supply of medicines for the programme has been public sector drug units. By depending only on public sector drug units for supply of medicines cannot make this programme a success. There has to be a move from the DoP’s side to involve private sector drug companies for regular and steady supply of drugs.