The Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) that sells affordable generic medicines through Jan Aushadhi Kendras (retail outlets) said it has achieved sales of ₹1,236 crore in FY23, growing 38% year-on-year.

In FY22, the turnover was ₹893 crore. “We have crossed the ₹1,200-crore revised target set by the government; the original target as per the five-year plan for the scheme was ₹775 crore,” said Ravi Dadhich, CEO of the Pharmaceuticals & Medical Devices Bureau of India (PMBI), the agency under ministry of chemical & fertilisers that implements PMBJP. Dadhich attributed the growth in sales to several initiatives taken in the last two years including increasing the number of Jan Aushadhi Kendras, ensuring sufficient availability of medicines, and extensive publicity given to the scheme by the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers.

So far, the government has operationalised 9,300 Jan Aushadhi Kendras with products comprising 1,800 lifesaving medicines and 285 surgical, nutraceuticals and medical devices, at 50-90% cheaper than the branded ones. The Jan Aushadhi Kendras or stores are run by small entrepreneurs. PMBI procures medicines by floating tenders, and supplies these medicines to the stores through its warehouses.

“We have a target to increase the number of kendras to 10,000 in FY24,” Dadhich said.

The government has invited applications from 651 districts to increase the density of Jan Aushadhi Kendra in those places.

The Union government has been pushing low-cost generics, to reduce out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure on patients. About 63% of total healthcare spending in India by way of OOP, medicines form a major chunk of the expense. About 95% of the medicines sold in India are generics, of which 90% of them are called branded generics sold through aggressive promotion and brand building through armies of medical reps, while remaining 10% are trade generics which are much cheaper as they don’t have selling and marketing expenses. But questions were often raised on the quality and efficacy of generic medicines.

Dadhich says the alleged claims that generic medicines are of low quality is unfounded. He says that even large companies who export drugs also supply Jan Aushadhi.”Jan Aushadhi medicines are subjected to strict quality control. We procure medicines from WHO good manufacturing practices (GMP) compliant manufacturers, we test all our procured batches through government empanelled NABL labs, we reject batches that don’t meet the acceptable quality standard,” Dadhich said.