Chasing the ambitious goal to launch 20,000 new pharmacies in the upcoming fiscal year, the next big target of the government’s affordable medicine scheme is reaching rural areas, a top government official told News18.com.
The Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) scheme — which is extensively promoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his election campaigns — has now chosen to extend its reach to enter far-flung areas using collaboration with Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS). PACS are already established credit bodies in rural India.
“The next focus is to take the scheme in the hinterlands of India. It was difficult to enter those areas using the entrepreneurship model, hence we are penetrating via PACS. We received over 4,500 applications, approved 2,500 of them and 400 shops have already been opened,” Ravi Dadhich, chief executive officer, Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Bureau of India (PMBI) — the government arm that executes the scheme — told News18.com in an exclusive interview.
The decision to collaborate with these societies was taken last year by Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah. “They have buildings and the same can be used for opening outlets. We will give them sales-based incentives,” Dadhich said, adding that overall, the scheme aims to open 20,000 outlets in the upcoming fiscal starting April 1, 2024.
Now, the outlets have been opened in several rural areas such as Komaragiripatnam village (Andhra Pradesh), Hasanpura (Bihar), Azamshapur (Haryana), Okhale (Maharashtra) and East Siang (Arunachal Pradesh). The initiative, Dadhich said, has received encouraging responses in many states, including Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
Antacid combo is top selling
The scheme offers generic drugs priced 50-90 per cent lower than their branded counterparts in the market. “All drugs procured by us undergo quality testing at NABL accredited labs. Of 1,000 samples tested, we encounter issues with only one drug in terms of assay, dissolution, etc. This implies that our rate of non-standard quality (NSQ) is negligible, at around 0.0001 percent.”
Antacid combo Pantoprazole and Domperidone are the top-selling medicines under the scheme, with sales of more than 12 lakh strips in one month, government data shows.
The antacid combo is closely followed by high blood pressure medicine Telmisartan with sales of over 10.40 lakh strips in a month. The top five list also contains the antacid Pantoprazole (9 lakh strips per month), hypertension drug Amlodipine (8.70 strips) and anti-diabetes drug metformin hydrochloride (8.36).
“The price for the branded version of antacid combo Pantoprazole and Domperidone is Rs 120 whereas, at our outlets, it is priced ten times less at Rs 12. The trend is similar for all other drugs, including the popular hypertension drug Telmisartan which is sold for above Rs 80 in the branded version whereas we sell it for Rs 12.”
Anti-diabetic is the biggest revenue churner for the scheme with more than 20 per cent money coming from the category closely followed by cardiovascular drugs (19.54 per cent), surgical and medical consumables (7.18 per cent), gastrointestinal (8.65 per cent) and antibiotics (6.34 per cent).
“With the average footfall of 10-12 lakh per day at Jan Aushadhi outlets, we are saving Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 7,000 crore every year and saved Rs 28,000 crore in the last 10 years,” claimed Dadhich.
The scheme has currently achieved a turnover of over Rs 1,327 crore against last year’s revenue of Rs 1,115 crore, posting a jump of over 25 per cent.
Dadhich hopes to close this fiscal year by hitting the target of Rs 1,400 crore in revenue by the end of March.
Opening of 25,000 outlets by 2026
During the Independence Day speech at Red Fort last year, PM Modi announced that the government has plans to increase the number of ‘Jan Aushadhi Kendras’ from 10,000 to 25,000.
Dadhich and his team are chasing the same with around 10, 742 outlets already up and running till February 29.
Sharing more details on how the scheme plans to add 20,000 outlets in the upcoming fiscal starting April 1, 2024, he said: “We are inviting new applications for store openings across India.” He added, “We have been noticing good responses from Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.”
At present, under the scheme, a pharmacy outlet in Jharkhand is the top performer, followed by outlets in Jammu, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu and Manipur. The average revenue of these outlets hovers between Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2.5 crore per year.
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