The Central government is contemplating a comprehensive plan to re-launch the Jan Aushadi generic medical stores scheme to provide low cost generic medicines to the poor patients in the country. As part of this, the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) is working on analysing the pros and cons of earlier similar scheme, which failed due to various reasons.
According to Sudhansh Pant, Joint Secretary, DoP, the central government is preparing to re-launch the generic Jan Aushadi stores scheme with a changed name. “We are expecting to re-launch the Jan Ausahdi generic stores schemes in the next 6 months. The proposed new scheme will have a different name and at present we are in the process of studying the pros and cons of earlier scheme, which was dumped unsuccessful due to lack of support from medical practitioners and various other reasons like lack of proper availability of human resources and trained professionals to dispense generic medicines at the stores,” informed Pant, while participating at a CEO’s discussion forum on the sidelines of BioAsia in Hyderabad.
Unlike in western countries, where insurance is the main sources for healthcare expenses, in India, 80 per cent of total medical and healthcare spending by people comes from their own pockets. Despite having National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), where a list of about 400 essential medicines have come under price control, the challenges of supplying affordable and quality medicines to the people are yet to be addressed effectively.
On one hand there is pressure from the domestic and international pharma companies to review the NPPA, while at the same time, the government is working on a balanced formula where a win-win situation will emerge to benefit both the sides. “India is strong in generics and the country has a reputation of supplying high quality affordable generics to more than 200 countries in the world. And it is our duty to ensure that the healthcare needs of 1.20 billion people also met adequately and a larger section of society gets relief from extra expenditure on healthcare,” added Pant.
As part of this, the central government has appointed a high level ministerial committee headed by Pant to review the various aspects of pharmaceutical industry like announcing economic package to encourage SMEs, the bulk drug and API industry in the country. Similarly a task force has been set up to study the challenges in the regulations of medical devices and very soon positive recommendations are expected to kickstart the medical devices manufacturing sector in the country.