The department of pharmaceuticals' (DoP) ambitious Jan Aushadhi (generic drug store) programme for making quality medicines available at affordable prices to the common people of the country is progressing at a snail's pace, thanks to the indifferent attitude of the senior DoP officials towards the programme.

According to the latest data available, only 46 Jan Aushadhi Stores have been opened across the country during the last around two years since the first such store was inaugurated by the then union chemicals minister Ramvilas Paswan in November 2008 in Amritsar.

The failure of the programme so far can be gauged from the fact that the DoP could open only 46 stores against a target of around 300 stores set by the incumbent union minister of state for chemicals Shrikant Jena. Considering the fact that 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, the minister had last year made a statement in Parliament that the government will open at least 276 stores in one year.

But, the DoP could not even open one fourth of the targeted number of generic stores. Most of the stores are now in the northern states like Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and even almost two years into the project, 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.