New Delhi: The government is planning to expand Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship drug scheme Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana — under which quality generic medicines are sold at affordable rates — to remote areas, ThePrint has learnt.
The Centre has set a target of opening nearly 5,000 ‘Jan Aushadhi Kendras’ (public pharmacies) in far-off tribal and rural areas in the next five years, a source in the government said. Under the scheme, 5,000 public pharmacies have already been opened across the country in the last five years — but mostly in urban areas.
The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), which looks after the execution of the scheme, is planning to request public sector enterprises (PSEs) situated in and around remote tribal and rural areas to allocate one-room space on their premises or elsewhere to open the ‘Jan Aushadhi Kendras’. The DoP functions under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.
The government is looking to open pharmacies in the Northeast, including Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Sikkim, and in remote areas of Chhattisgarh, western Rajasthan, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep, the source added.
‘Need to reach out to those who desperately need medicines’
“The majority of the outlets we have opened so far are in urban areas. But the real purpose of the scheme is to benefit the poor living in the tribal and remote areas of India. We need to reach out to those people who desperately need these medicines,” a senior bureaucrat at the DoP told ThePrint.
“We are planning to write to PSE’s to allot us a small room in their office complex where we can start Jan Aushadhi’s retail outlet,” the bureaucrat said, adding that they are yet to send a formal request in this regard as they are in the process of “selecting geographies”.
As far as sales of medicines under the scheme is concerned, only Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat account for over 70 per cent of the sales, according to NITI Aayog.
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Govt aims to save Rs 5,000 crore for common people
Another senior official at the DoP said, “The discussions are going on and expansion in unserved geographies is part of the ministry’s five-year plan.”
According to the DoP’s vision document, accessed by ThePrint, the government’s objective is to save Rs 5,000 crore for the common people by opening nearly 5,000 more pharmacies in the next five years.
In the first and second year (2019 and 2020), the target is to open 2,000 outlets, followed by 1,200 in the third year and 1,600 in the fourth and fifth years, the document stated.
The generic medicines sold at the ‘Jan Aushadhi’ stores are almost 50 to 90 per cent cheaper than their branded counterparts.
The scheme has been promoted widely by PM Modi on several occasions, including in Lok Sabha election rallies, where he said that the scheme has led to the savings of Rs 1,000 crore for the common people.
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