Moving forward with its novel health welfare scheme ‘Jeevandhara’, the government of Andhra Pradesh is taking steps to set up a series of generic drug stores in Hyderabad with the collaboration of Red Cross and the AP Senior Citizen’s confederation. As part of this initiative, the government has inaugurated first of its kind Jeevandhara stores at Osmania General Hospital which will be followed by outlets at Gandhi Hospitals and other government hospitals across the state.

Earlier during last year, the government had started Jeevandhara Sanjeevani Pharmacy as a pilot project at King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam. This has become a great success as it had provided more than 333 varieties of generic drugs from reputed 20 pharma companies.

The main objective of the scheme is to provide quality medicines at affordable prices for all.  As the healthcare costs are increasing day by day, the government had felt that Jeevandhara is the only options through which the poor patients can be served with quality medicines for cheaper rates. The concept of Jeevandhara is the brainchild of J.Syamala Rao, former collector Visakhapatnam and MD of APMSIDC (Andhra Pradesh Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation).

In fact almost 50 per cent of Andhra Pradesh’s healthcare costs go towards procuring medicines and yet 65 per cent expenditure is incurred by the public in purchasing drugs.  The government has taken a serious note of this issue and has decided to provide high quality drugs manufactured by top pharma companies at affordable prices to the poor through the Jeevandhara outlets.

Uday Bhasker, secretary-general of All India Drugs Control Officers’ (AIDCO) confederation informed that most pharma companies in India manufacture generic drugs under a brand name and these are popularly known as branded generics. The same company manufactures branded and unbranded generic drugs, having the same composition, but there is a huge difference in the ex-factory price and MRP of branded generics varying from 50 per cent to 100 per cent.

“The unbranded generic equivalents are equally good in therapeutic value compared to the branded medicines. Moreover, there are no separate standards for generic and branded drugs. As per the drug and cosmetics Act, every drug has to pass the specified parameters. So why should one buy costly medicines when we can get the same drug with a lower price. The Jeevandhara employs this concept and it will really help the poor in giving them new lives at affordable prices,” said J Syamala Rao, MD, APMSIDC.