Jan Aushadhi stores gaining popularity, but supplies low

Steps on to ensure a streamlined supply of drugs: official

There are 1 2 Jan Aushadhi stores in Chennai city.

T.N. Dillibabu, who has diabetes, has significantly brought down his monthly medication costs. He now buys generic medicines from a Jan Aushadhi store in the city. “I used to spend about ₹900 a month, but now it is within ₹300,” he said.

Mr. Dillibabu is one of several customers who now goes to one of the city’s 12 Jan Aushadhi pharmacies for their medication. Store owners say the scheme is helping many get drugs at a fraction of the cost they used to incur, but supply problems are affecting some stores, and awareness among the public remains low. The Centre launched the Jan Aushadhi project in 2008 to provide affordable, generic medicines to the public. Santhosheema Ravi, State-in-charge, Tamil Nadu of the Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India, which implements the project, said sales were increasing month on month. There are 245 stores across the State and the project has 600 drugs available, of around a total of 3,600.

“Most patients come in for medicines for hypertension, diabetes and cholesterol. We have 300 drugs available, but there are supply issues, and we have to tell customers to inform us in advance,” said one store owner.

“Instead of focusing on many drugs, if the project could just cater to drugs for chronic conditions and medicines such as immunosupressants for transplant patients, it would help with stocks and benefit patients too,” he said. “Awareness of the stores also cannot be increased until there is adequate supply,” he said. Another store owner said sales were somewhat slow because of the supply issue.

On supplies, Ms. Ravi said that they were working to resolve the issue and ensure a streamlined supply of drugs.

Generic names

Store owners also said that if doctors prescribed generic names, this would make it much easier for them to dispense medication. Even though the Medical Council of India has directed doctors to prescribe medicines by generic names, concerns have been raised about this.

“Prescribing combination drugs with generic names is difficult. In addition, there could be a difference in quality between a generic drug and a branded one. As it is, quality control of drug manufacturing is very poor in the country. Mandating generics only may turn out to be risky for patients,” said K. Senthil, State president, Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association.

Also, Dr. Senthil said, there could be brand substitutions made by pharmacists if only generic names are given, which will not serve the purpose. “Instead, a law for manufacturers to use generic names could be brought in, and doctors could write out both brand names and generics on their prescriptions,” he added.

However, Ms. Ravi said the quality of Jan Aushadhi generic drugs was excellent and that there were no issues there.