The Department of Pharmaceuticals' (DoP) Jan Aushadhi (generic drug store) project for making quality medicines available at affordable prices to the common men is progressing at a snail's pace, thanks to the indifferent attitude of the senior DoP officials towards the programme. Against an ambitious target of around 500 stores, the DoP could open only 100 such stores so far in the country.

According to the latest data announced by Union minister of state for chemicals and fertilisers Srikant Jena in Lok Sabha, as on August 18, 2011, only 100 Jan Aushadhi outlets are functional in the country in the states/UTs of Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh and Delhi. The government launched the project on November 25, 2008 when it opened the first Jan Aushadhi store at Amritsar in Punjab. Though it is almost three years since the launch of the project, it did not pick up momentum.

The tardy progress of the scheme can be gauged from the Minister's announcement on the issue in Parliament around two years back.   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 then made a statement in Parliament that the government will open at least 276 stores by March 31, 2010. But that remained on paper only as the DoP could open only 55 stores by March 31, 2010.

But, even after three years into the project, 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 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.

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.