‘Jan Aushadhi ensures quality medicine to poor’

Madurai: The objective of Centre’s Jan Aushadhi scheme is to make available quality medicine to poor people, said Bibleb Chatterjee, chief executive officer of Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India (BPPI), the implementing agency of the scheme under the administrative control of department of pharmaceuticals, Union ministry of chemicals and fertilisers. He was in the city to inaugurate a workshop on ‘Promoting access to affordable medicines: mainstreaming Jan Aushadhi Scheme’ on Saturday.

Interacting with mediapersons ahead of the workshop, Chatterjee said that pharmaceutical industry in India is worth Rs 1.20 lakh crore but nearly 60% people in the country did not have access to medicines. On the other hand, India is one of the leading producers of quality generic medicine. “The objective of Jan Aushadhi is to bridge this gap between the weak and strong, which means making quality medicines available to poor and lower middle class in the country,” he said.

Under Jan Aushadhi, generic medicine will be made available to people at affordable cost. The pricing is derived by averaging top three brands on that drug and fixing the price not exceeding 50% of that average. Thus, the medicines are priced cheaper and will be very beneficial to poor and people procuring them for chronic diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular problems, he said.

To ensure quality, generic medicines areprocured from World Health Organization approved companies and pharmaceutical public sector undertakings. They are stored in a central warehouse where random samples are tested through NABL-certified laboratories before being supplied to Jan Aushadhi medical shops through carry and forward chain, he said.

Chatterjee also expressed optimism that Jan Aushadhi scheme, once implemented will generate lot of employment because they are ensuring that system is transparent and free of corruption. M N Sridhar, assistant director of drug control, Madurai said that 17 licences have been issued for Jan Aushadhi shops in Madurai. Authorities take seven days to issue licences and existing drug store licences can also be changed to Jan Aushadhi scheme, he said. The workshop was organised by BPPI, along with Sustainable Healthcare Advancement Trust (SUHAM), a healthcare initiative of DHAN foundation.

It was attended by medical practitioners, administrators of hospitals, pharmacists and members of NGOs attended the workshop. The workshop discussed on topics like quality assurance of Jan Aushadhi products, features of generic medicines, the scheme and community perspectives by experts.