The Telangna State Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC) is under government scanner for procuring huge quantities of drugs that are nearing expiry. According to sources, officials in connivance with pharmaceutical companies procured huge quantities of medicines meant for government hospitals but are nearing expiry and going to be unusable without distributing them to the hospitals due to laxity of the officials.

“Officials in erstwhile APMSIDC use to follow the same tactic to earn commission from the pharma companies. Even after bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh into AP and TS, these officials seem to continue the same practice and the state exchequer has to incur huge losses,” said a source.

More than 100 types of drugs have been procured by TSMSIDC officials with expiry dates only six months from now. Some of the drugs have been already expired in May and a few more going to expire in June and July this year.

It has also come to notice that huge quantities of drugs procured during the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh government during the past 3 years have also gone waste due to expiry of the medicines. Even after bifurcation, the officials are continuing with the same practice and procuring large stocks of medicines even if there is no demand from the government hospitals.

Another key issue that has come to notice is laxity among officials for not distributing the essential medicines in time to the hospitals when there is a demand. It is observed that there are lakhs of tablets for various diseases that are going to expire in the next 6 months. The officials have not done proper assessment before procuring them and do not have a proper plan to distribute them in accordance to the demand from time to time.

Having learned this, the state government has focused its concentration on the activities of TSMSIDC officials and instructed the higher authorities to black list all those pharma companies that are not complying with norms. As part of this, the state government had stopped drugs procurement deal of Rs.100 crore from these suppliers and has instructed the officials to immediately disburse the stocked medicines to the government hospitals and make their maximum use before expiry.