Karnataka government has teamed up with State Cooperative Consumer Federation to set up 20 Janatha Bazar generic drug stores across the state to make available affordable drugs to the poor patients in the state. Four pharma companies Cipla Torrent, Sun Pharma and Intas have consented to supply generic medicines at subsidized costs to these stores.

The initiative is on similar lines of the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP)'s Jan Aushadhi generic stores which was launched in 2008 to make available affordable drugs to the poor patients. The state government has decided to sell generic drugs at 50 per cent discount on maximum retail price by opening up the generic drugs stores across hospitals coming under the medical education department which covers Victoria, Vani Vilas, Minto, Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology and Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital.

The first of this store was opened at the Victoria Hospital, the oldest government medical centre in the state. There are 19 more stores to be kicked-off operations by the year end and four of these will be in Bengaluru alone, said Karnataka medical education minister S A Ramdas.

The state drugs control department will carry out surprise inspections on similar lines of its operations being conducted at the 25,000 pharmacy outlets across Karnataka.

The drugs which are being made available at the outlets will be for all diseases and disorders covering asthma, anti hyper tension, cancer, cardiology, nephrology, ophthalmology, dermatology and Parkinson's disease.

The Janatha Bazar generic drug stores will sell medicines at 50 per cent of the MRP. This move would be a boon to the general public especially the poor patients. Such dedicated programme to ensure the drugs reach to the patients directly from the manufacturers is a first of its kind in the country, said the State medical education minister adding that the patients below the poverty line (BPL) would continue to get the medicines free of cost in the government hospitals.

The stores would not just offer 50 per cent discount on MRP for generics but also for branded drugs, life saving drugs, orthopaedics accessories and cardiac implants.

The state government has also taken a decision to introduce an integrated holistic medical treatment at all its medical college hospitals across Karnataka in Bengaluru, Hubli, Shimoga, Hubli to name a few.

In order to ensure that integrated holistic medical treatment comes in at a faster pace, a four member committee has been constituted to suggest to the government steps to be followed for introducing the same.  The committee is headed by Prof. R Nagarathna, vice chancellor SVYAS University in Bengaluru and the report will be submitted by early next month.