Last month, the Department of Pharmaceuticals made an assessment of its
Jan Aushadhi programme launched in 2008. The Department has been
concerned over the slow progress of the programme in opening these
stores during the last two years. The Assessment showed that the
programme has not made the desired progress on account of various
factors. The Department could open only 80 stores in seven states that
too in the northern region of the country. The plan was to open at least
100 generic stores in one year in various parts of the country and sell
300 widely used drugs belonging to 16 therapeutic categories through
these stores. As per the plan, the chain should have expanded to cover
626 districts by the end of 2011.The objective of the programme was to
make an attempt to provide cheaper generic drugs to the poor by sourcing
them from small scale units and PSUs like HAL and IDPL. The Dept has
realized over the years that National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority
has not been able to bring any price discipline in the case of even the
price controlled drugs as it has no enforcement powers. Now, with no
possibility for a new drug policy in the near future the Department
feels that programmes like Jan Aushadhi can only ensure availability of
at least the widely used drugs at affordable prices to the common man.

A
populist programme like Jan Aushadhi may not turn into a grand success
that easily as there are some powerful forces who oppose it.
Multinational and large Indian drug companies are not very happy with
the project as generic stores can directly hit their sales in the long
run. Same is the case with the pharmaceutical trade. Traders who are
used to getting huge margins for the branded products from big pharma
companies do not want patients to go to generic stores at the cost of
their business. Physicians who have a critical role in making Jan
Aushadhi a success are also not cooperating as most of them are
benefited for prescribing branded products of large companies. In the
light of these realities, DoP has to work hard to make this noble
initiative a success. It's determination now to prepare an action plan
to revive the whole project is laudable. At a recent meeting of top
officials concerned with the project, a plan involving Rs.100 crore has
been finalised..The Department now has also set a fresh target for
opening 3000 generic stores taking the network up to the sub-divisional
levels in the country in the next few years. This is obviously a much
tougher target than what was set in 2008. The Department has to seek
active support of all the state governments and their agencies for
meeting the target.