‘AMRIT pharmacy model needs to change’
Then why should generic medicines be brought under the knife alone?” The Sunday Guardian had earlier reported on AMRIT (Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment) pharmacies, highlighting how the initiative is benefiting people, but pointing out that the business model of AMRIT pharmacies might have a “negative effect” on the pharmaceutical industry in the long run ( Chemists resist PM Modi’s low-cost AMRIT pharmacies, 21 May).
According to HLL Lifecare Limited, the agency under which such pharmacies operate, these pharmacies are able to offer drugs at lower prices in two ways—first, through procurement efficiency, wherein all products are aggregated and purchased in bulk, helping in gaining lower procurement costs. Secondly, AMRIT pharmacies work on a small mark-up on the procurement cost. The channel margins such as retailer margin of 20% and distributor margin of 10% are passed on to consumers as discounts, except on DPCO (drug price control orders) products.
J.S. Shinde, president of Mumbai- based All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists ( AIOCD), said: “There is nothing wrong with the government’s intent to make medicines cheaper. However, the government cannot tell doctors to prioritise generic medicines in their prescriptions. This is in violation of Section 65 11(2) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945.”
Shinde’s reference is the government proposal to mandate doctors to prescribe generic drugs to check the doctor-drug companies’ nexus that makes medicines expensive.
Shinde added, “The government is procuring generic medicines in bulk and trying to mandate doctors to prescribe it, though that is against the law. The discounts on the drugs are being given at the cost of the middlemen and retailers’ margin. This is why we feel that this model will not be able to hold on for long.”
Kumar said, “AMRIT pharmacies are needed, but not everywhere. They should be opened outside big private hospitals where private pharmacies run in collaboration with the hospital. Opening AMRIT pharmacies outside government hospitals would be useful too.” Many “social entrepreneurs” are creating news web portals to expose the trend of fake news with damaging security implications.
It didn’t take long after the demonetisation announcement in November last year for almost everyone to hear about the new Rs 2,000 note having a “built-in GPSenabled nano-chip”. “News” of this “high-tech feature” spread rapidly, though there was no notification about it from the Reserve Bank of India.
In November last year, too, “news” about shortage of salt in North India spread rapidly, unleashing panic and claiming a woman’s life in Bakarganj Bazaar, Kanpur.
This wasn’t the only time when fake news claimed a life. In 2013, messages sent on WhatsApp helped incite riots in Muzaffarnagar. A two-year-old video of a lynching in Pakistan was mischievously “promoted” as an attack on two Hindu boys by Muslims in Kawal village of Muzaffarnagar. The video, in turn, provoked calls for revenge that claimed lives.
Angry over such fake news going viral, in August 2015, Pankaj Jain, a 39-yearold cyber engineer from Mumbai, started SM Hoax