Pharmacists a roadblock for cheaper medicines through Jan Aushadhi stores

The Centre’s plan to make cheaper medicines available to people by opening Jan Aushadhi Stores ( JAS) has hit a roadblock as pharmacists are reluctant to join these stores.

Since these stores are selling generic medicines at a much cheaper cost, the margin of profit is less. Therefore, running them is becoming unviable, as a result of which the pharmacists are not keen to join these stores. As per norms, every medical shop should have qualified pharmacists. Adding to the problem, the doctors are still not prescribing generic medicines, despite being asked by the government and the Medical Council of India (MCI) to do so. There is still no clarity about the generic medicines among the masses.

“Doctors are still writing the names of branded pills in their prescription. For example, a doctor writes Crocin on prescription. The patient goes to a Jan Aushadhi Kendra where he is given a paracetamol. Since a large number of people have no idea about generic medicines, they do not understand that Crocin is in fact paracetamol. In this situation, the patient refuses to buy paracetamol saying it has to be Crocin. Such a problem is quite com- mon,” said a source.

According to Bhupendra Kumar, general secretary of Indian Pharmacists Association, unless doctors start writing generic medicines the JAS would not become viable. He also said retailers are reluctant to open JAS since the overall volume of sale/turnover is very low. “Moreover, the major investment for opening such stores is in space (shop), which is very costly. Therefore, retailers find it less attractive to open these stores. If the government agrees to provide space, it can become an attractive option for the retailers,” Kumar said. National convenor of Swastha Bharat Abhiyan, Ashutosh Kumar Singh, said despite the scheme being noble, it has not become effective as pharmacists are not joining it. He has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Ministry of Health saying JAS have created a parallel market to the existing network of medical shops. “About 90% of medicines sold in India are generic. So, instead of opening JAS to sell generic medicines, the government should think about nationalising all medical shops in the country. What is the need to have two kinds of medicine selling networks?” he has said in the letter written to the PM.

As per estimates, India’s drug market is worth over Rs 90,000 crore. There are over 7 lakh medical shops all over the country, including illegal ones.

The government last year decided to open 3,000 JAS in the country. In order to open JAS within government hospital premises, the government announced a one-time assistance of Rs 2.5 lakh. The margin available for retailers was kept at 20% to ensure a reasonable level of profitability for them.

In addition to the retailers’ margin up to 20%, incentives at the rate of 15% of monthly sales is also given to JAS opened outside the government hospitals.