In mid 2008 The Government of India created a new department, ‘The Department of Pharmaceuticals’ (DoP), under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers. The new department came out with its following vision statement:“To enable Indian pharmaceuticals industry to play a leading role in the global market and to ensure abundant availability, at reasonable prices within the country, of good quality pharmaceuticals of mass consumption.”‘Jan Aushadhi’ – ‘Medicines for the common man’:

In this article, I shall submit my point of view on the second part of the above vision statement, which articulated the responsibility of the department to ensure availability of affordable modern medicine for ‘mass consumption’.

When over 70% of Indian population lives in rural areas, one can quite easily assume that such medicines will be available adequately in rural areas of the country, as well. Obviously the question that follows this admirable vision statement is how?

To respond to this question one will try to address the following two basic strategic issues:

1. Create a workable and viable business model, which can be gradually developed over a period
of time to deliver the promise

2. Create a robust supply chain network to ensure easy access of these medicines to the common
man, located even in remote rural areas.

The first part of the strategic issue has been well addressed by the DoP, within a very short period, by creating ‘Jan Aushadhi’, the medicines for the masses. Importantly, the second point, which will determine the success of the project, has not been clearly articulated.

The objectives of the ‘Jan Aushadhi’ were stated as follows:

1. To promote awareness for cost effective quality generic medicines. (However, how exactly this will be done, is yet to be known.)

2. To make available unbranded affordable quality generic medicines through private public partnership (PPP). (I support this objective from procurement perspective. However, so far as the delivery of these medicines to the common man is concerned, I would argue below:why do we reinvent the wheel?)

3. To encourage doctors in the Government Hospitals to prescribe such cost effective quality
generic medicines. (This is again just a statement of intent without considering the critical issue of its implementation in the predominantly branded generic market, like India.)

4. To help patients save significantly towards medicine cost with ‘Jan Aushadhi’ outlets.

5. A national help line is believed to be able to increase awareness level of this initiative.

The statements of intent of the DoP also highlight that the State Governments, NGOs and Charitable bodies will be encouraged to set up such generic medicine shops. It also states that the existing outlets of the Government and NGOs may also be used for this cause.

This particular decision of DoP, as I stated before, appears to be an attempt to ‘re-invent the wheel’, as it were. I shall argue on this subject, very shortly.

An open ended launch plan with inadequate market penetration compared to set objectives:

DoP announced that this scheme will be launched gradually in all the districts of India in four phases. However, for some unknown reasons, besides phase one and two, the other two phases of the launch plan have been kept by the department, as open ended as it could be, despite the Government of India’s having all wherewithals to implement this scheme with a reasonable degree of preciseness.

The four phases were decided as follows:

1. Phase 1: Amritsar Civil Hospital in November 8, 2008

2. Phase 2: Few stores in Delhi, National Capital Region (NCR), district hospitals in Mohali,
Ludhiana, Bhatinda and Jalandhar by February 28, 2009

3. Phase 3: Other districts of Punjab and some other states to be covered during 2009 and
2010

4. Phase 4: Remaining districts of the country by 2010 and 2012

I am not surprised that with such vague launch plan and an open ended timeline, the Government seems to have faltered in Phase 2 itself, when it could not go beyond Amritsar and Shastri Bhavan, Delhi outlets, by February, 28, 2009.

Arguing for the need of a course correction:

Despite being a hardcore optimist, I now get a vague feeling that the ‘Jan Aushadhi’ scheme of the DoP may not ultimately be able to achieve its cherished goals and may remain just as another good intention of the Government of India, if a course correction is not made at this stage.

The key barrier to improve access to affordable quality generic medicine to the common man, in this particular case, is not conceptualization of a project. We all know that our Government is reasonably good at it, with a good number of brilliant minds working to give a shape to it. The main weakness to translate this laudable idea into reality, in my view, falls well within the general weakness of the Government in visualizing the key barriers to the project and at the same time missing out on some of the key drivers for the same.

In this case, there seems to be some flaw in the ‘ideation’ stage of the project, as well. This flaw lies with the plan of its delivery mechanism involving state government, NGOs and various other bodies.

If procurement of cost effective quality generic medicines is not an issue, then the DoP should carefully look within the Government system to ensure easy access of such medicines to the common man.

Two grossly underutilized Government controlled ‘mass delivery systems’:

The Government of India has two very unique product distribution and delivery systems within the country with deep penetration from metro cities to even far off rural areas. These two Government owned supply and delivery chains are as follows:

1. Public Distribution System (PDS) for food grains and other essential commodities (Ration shops).

2. Indian Post Offices

Like food grains, medicines are also essential items. Why then DoP not collaborate with PDS to ensure easy access of such medicines to the common man?

Similarly, when postal department are collaborating with various other agencies to sell and distribute many types of products in rural areas, why not DoP consider this alternative, as well?

In fact, I would strongly recommend usage of both PDS and Post Offices by the DoP for deeper penetration of such medicines especially for the benefit of those 650 million people of India who do not have any access to affordable modern medicines.

I am aware, the question of ‘in-efficiency’ of these systems may be raised by many in India. However, at the end of the day who is responsible to make these systems efficient? People responsible for managing a system or process are usually held accountable for its ‘efficiency’ or ‘inefficiency’.

We have many excellent minds in the DoP, I hope, they may wish to explore the possibility of effectively utilizing these two already available state controlled mass distribution systems to ensure success of the project “Jan Ausadhi” – “Medicines for the common man”.

It is worth noting that this project seems to have already started limping with its vague execution plan and a delivery system, the scaling up of which to ensure access to one billion population of our country could be a serious question mark.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.