As per information provided by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW), to ensure availability of essential drugs and reduce the Out-of-Pocket Expenditure (OOPE) of the patients visiting the public health facilities, Government has rolled out the Free Drugs Service Initiative (FDSI) under National Health Mission (NHM).  Under this, financial support is provided to States / Union Territories for provision of free essential medicines in public health facilities based on the requirements posed by them in their Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs) within their overall resource envelope.

MoH&FW has recommended facility wise Essential Medicines List (EML) to be made available at the public healthcare facilities:

1. Sub Health Centre Ayushman Arogya Mandir (SHC-AAMs) - 113
2. Primary Health Centre Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (PHC-AAMs) - 179
3. Community Health Centers (CHCs) - 301
4. Sub-District Hospital - 318
5. District Hospital (DHs) - 381

Support under the scheme is available for procurement of drugs and strengthening /setting up robust systems of procurement, Quality Assurance, supply chain management and warehousing, prescription audit, grievance redressal, dissemination of Standard Treatment guidelines and establishment of IT enabled platform DVDMS (Drugs & Vaccine Distribution Management System) for monitoring the real status of procurement and availability of essential medicines. To facilitate the monitoring of supply chain management activity at National level, a Central Dashboard has been developed.

Also, under National Health Mission (NHM), Common Review Missions (CRM) are conducted annually to assess and monitor the progress and implementation status of various schemes including FDSI.

Quality of drugs procured, under FDSI is ensured through the operational guidelines of the initiative that:-

1. All drugs must be sourced from Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) compliant manufacturers through robust procurement mechanism. 
2. Post supply testing of every batch before distributing to the health facilities.

Pharmaceuticals & Medical Devices Bureau of India (PMBI), the implementing agency of the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Priyojana (PMBJP), continuously monitors the availability of medicines including essential medicines at Jan Aushadhi Kendras, (JAKs) including those operating in Kerala.

The product basket under the PMBJP has 2,110 medicines and 315 surgicals, medical consumables and devices, covering all major therapeutic groups, such as cardiovascular, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, anti-infectives, anti-allergic and gastro-intestinal medicines and nutraceuticals. Almost all generic medicines included in the National List of Essential Medicines, except lab reagents and vaccines, are part of this product basket. Continuous monitoring and appropriate corrective measures are undertaken to minimize stock shortage and ensure availability of essential medicines across the country.

In order to address any supply gaps and ensure smooth supply and availability of products at JAKs, the following measures are in place:

1. Since September 2024, stocking by JAKs of 200 commonly used medicines, consisting of the 100 top-selling medicines in the scheme product basket and 100 fast-selling medicines in the market, has been incentivised, under which JAK owners are eligible for monthly incentive based on the stocks that they maintain for these medicines.
2. An end-to-end information-technology-enabled supply chain system is in place to connect a robust supply chain system consisting of five warehouses and a growing network of distributors across the country, currently numbering 42.
3.  In addition, with a view to ensure availability of commonly used products, 400 fast-moving products are monitored regularly by Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Bureau of India (PMBI), the scheme implementing agency, and demand for the same is estimated on a continuous basis. Further, steps have been taken to digitise the estimation method to augment the procurement process.

This information was given by Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Smt. Anupriya Patel, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

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