More than a year after it was registered under Societies Registration Act, 1860 by the Union health ministry to eliminate the existing deficiencies and streamline the drug procurement and distribution system of the department of health and family welfare, the Central Medical Services Society (CMSS) is being made operational shortly.

According to senior health ministry officials, the CMSS will be responsible for procuring health sector goods in a transparent and cost-effective manner and distributing them to the State/UT Governments by setting up IT enabled supply chain infrastructure including State warehouses in 50 locations spread across the country. This central procurement agency of ministry of health and family welfare will be doing all the drug procurement now being done by the dept of Family Welfare.

Officials said that the rules and regulations of the CMSS have been framed and the ministry is providing a one time budgetary support of Rs.50 crore to enable establishment of CMSS.

The main objective of CMSS will be to ensure uninterrupted supply of health sector goods to the state governments. To meet its operational expenses, CMSS has been permitted to charge a service fee on the value of procurement which should be well within an upper ceiling of five per cent of the value of procurement.

The CMSS will function as an independent, professional and autonomous agency for purchasing all medicines, vaccines, contraceptives and medical equipments for all the government's disease control programmes.

At present, the health ministry is procuring drugs, vaccines, contraceptives and medical equipments departmentally and through procurement agents for its various disease control programmes. However, certain deficiencies, such as inadequate professional procurement expertise, absence of supply chain management system, manual collection of data and absence of any credible Management Information System (MIS) have been adversely affecting the procurement system.

The ministry thought of setting up a central procurement agency like CMSS as senior officials in the ministry felt that a professional, autonomous and efficient organisation like CMSS is needed to eliminate the existing deficiencies and streamline the drug procurement and distribution system in the country.

There is a feeling among the senior officials that the establishment of CMSS will enable the union health ministry to efficiently procure and properly distribute quality medicines, vaccines, contraceptives and medical equipments to the state/Union Territory governments and also eliminate shortages and wastages, resulting in considerable savings to the government.