PGI starts process to identify spot for Jan Aushadi shop

CHANDIGARH: The PGI has started the process to identify places near the emergency ward to set up a Jan Aushadi shop.
Near the emergency, there is no such generic medicines shop where the cost of the medicines is almost as low as 50-90% of the branded medicines. Unlike other generic medicines, the Jan Aushadis drugs are checked for quality by the GOI.
Sources in the PGI have informed that the process to identify a suitable site has been started.“The idea is to have it nearer to the emergency,” said an official in PGI.
In the last three months PGI’S Jan Aushadi shops have sold Rs 70 lakh worth medicines, as per the PGIs records.
There are 19 chemist shops in PGI and the rent of the emergency shop for a month is Rs 1.5 crore. Out of the 19 drug stores in the PGI, two shops are of Jan Aushadis where the rental is free.
On Monday, the UT health secretary, Yashpal Garg had requested the PGI director to open Jan Aushadi in the emergency block, where the shop gives Rs 6.7 lakh a day rental, the price of which is borne by the patients. The UT health department will soon allow bidding for four more Jan Aushadi stores in the civil hospitals in the city which will increase these drug stores count to 10.
Earlier, when Dr Bharti Pravin Pawar, Union minister of state for health and family welfare, had visited PGI in May, she had expressed the mandate of the GOI which has opened over 9k such Jan Aushadis meant for affordability and accessibility with low cost and good quality.
According to the ministry of health and family welfare, the Jan Aushadhi Kendras across the country are visited by over 20 lakh people daily. Also an app ‘Jan Aushadhi Sugam’ has been launched to make people aware about the salt in the medicine to enable them make a considered choice between generic and branded medicine.
The union minister for health and family, Mansukh Mandaviya in his recent visit to the city, had shared that ‘a Jan Aushadhi Kendra will also be opened in the Satellite Centre , Sangrur.