The Central government has issued a set of draft guidelines for procurement of ayurvedic medicines for the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS). The procurement shall be done through rate contract (RC) and normal validity of RC will be for a period of two years, which may be extended for a period of six months in one instance and upto a period of one more year on the discretion of the ministry.

The procurement of medicines will be recommended by a provisioning committee and shall be approved by the ministry. A panel of medical inspection committee shall be constituted, comprising of three members each for two years with two months tenure will be prepared and approval for the same will be obtained from the director CGHS to compare the bulk supply of medicines in two phase.

According to the draft the ayurvedic medicines that are manufactured by Indian Medicines Pharmaceutical Corporation Limited (IMPCL) may be procured without inviting tender or rate enquiry at rates finalised by the cost and account branch of Department of Expenditure/Ministry of Finance. However this is applicable only if IMPCL provides barcode for their list of manufacturing medicines from next financial year.

Apart from getting ayurvedic medicines from IMPCL, CGHS will also procure medicines from open market through tendering process by following two bid procedure. These medicines would be generic medicines that are not in the list of medicines being produced by IMPCL or medicines which are certified by the IMPCL having not produced for the period and proprietary medicines as per approved CGHS formulary under disease category.

The draft mentions that the procurement of the medicines shall also be done through approved local chemists if a formulary medicine is not available in the store dispensaries, units or hospitals and even the medicines of equal therapeutic value is is not available in the existing formulary.

It has been notified that the medicines shall be procured only from the firm that has a manufacturing unit with an average annual turnover of rupees 50 lakh per year for three years. Interested firm should be able to pay Rs 25,000 and performance security of Rs 50,000 EMD for a period of four to five months and performance security for a period of three years. The firm should possess for the last three years the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certificate issued under Schedule T of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 rules there under in force. The draft specifies that all the firms catering should be able to provide barcode system for the selected medicines on the label and packaging unit.

“Procurement of ayurvedic medicines for CGHS, Delhi will be made as per annual provisioning worked out on the pattern of daily patients attendance rate (DPAR) formula and annual demand submitted by the hospitals. The provisioning of classical and patent proprietary medicines of IMPCL and other firms will be made on the assumption of the last three years,” the draft states.

It states that the first preference for the procurement of the medicines shall go to IMPCL. However the draft clarifies that CGHS may procure medicines which are not supplied by the IMPCL from state government or co-operative pharmacies provided they are willing to supply medicines on CGHS rate contract. It states that the ratio of 60:40 in terms of value in classical and propriety medicines will be maintained in the CGHS procurement.