In a novel initiative to make drug trading high tech for retailers, the Thiruvananthapuram district committee of All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association has launched a unified computerized system under a special package to all members of the district committee. The scheme will be fully operational from January 1 onwards.



Under this package, the retailers will be given special software which, besides communication, will facilitate them for electronic billing with tax collection, automatic purchase entry and category wise searching of medicines. The novel scheme would help bring all the drug merchants in the district under one umbrella which also help them solve their problems.



V Ajith Kumar, secretary of AKCDA, TVM District Committee said under the guidance of the committee all the retail pharmacies will be given a computer and software through a nationalized bank. The bank will extend loans on an interest rate of 11 per cent. The inauguration of the scheme was done last week.



The unified computer system will have the facilities to alert the retailers about non-moving products, expiry dates of stock medicines, re—ordering status, graphical representation of movement of medicines, details of banned medicines and sold medicines, returns, etc. The master computer in the district office will alert the office-bearers about the total quantity of expired and unsold medicines stored in each medical store and it will pass message to the retailers to clean out the shelf immediately. Ajith said the association will collect the expired drugs from the retailers to make a clean market and send them back to the distributors.



He said Punjab National Bank is the nodal agency for disbursement of loans and Rs. 1.5 crore has been sanctioned already for the purpose. The scheme will help about 1300 members and avoid irregularities in prices of the products.



The software is known as Medsman and is developed by Zyphix Technologies Pvt Ltd which is situated in Techno Park in Thiruvananthapuram.