The Union minister of state for chemicals Shrikant Jena's ambitious target to open 276 Jan Aushadhi (generic drug) stores by March 31, 2010 in different parts of the country remained on paper only as the department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) could open only 55 stores so far, not even 25 per cent of the target.

The minister had last year made a statement in Parliament that the government will open at least 276 stores in one year. Providing quality medicines at affordable prices to the poor people was one of the promises made by the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre during the Lok Sabha elections in 2009.

Concerned about the slow progress of the project which is aimed to make quality generic medicines available at affordable prices to the poorer sections of society, the minister had asked the senior officials in the DoP to accord top priority to the Jan Aushadhi project. The minister is believed to have told the DoP officials to anyhow meet the target of opening a total of 276 Jan Aushadhi stores in different parts of the country by March 31, 2010, even at the cost of other projects and programmes of the department.

But, only 55 stores were opened so far and the total sales from Jan Aushadhi after conception had crossed just Rs.2 crore. Most of the stores are now in the northern states like Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and it is a non-starter in the southern and northern states of the country.

Jan Aushadhi project is an ambitious project of former union chemicals minister Ramvilas Paswan under which the government proposed to open one Jan Aushadhi store in each district of the country. The government launched the project on November 25, 2008 when it opened a Jan Aushadhi store at Amritsar in Punjab. Though some more stores were opened in, it did not pick up momentum, mainly due to the apathetic attitude of the DoP officials towards the project.

By establishing the Jan Aushadhis in each district, preferably in the premises of the district hospitals, the government wanted to ensure quality medicines to the poor people at affordable prices. At a time when the prices of medicines are increasingly becoming out of the reach of poorer sections of the society, the Jan Aushadhi stores are expected to prove to be a boon to them. Once implemented according to the prices suggested by the government, the treatment cost is to come down drastically.