The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, through the Department of Pharmaceuticals, has detailed the government's comprehensive measures to ensure availability of essential medicines in Government hospitals and Jan Aushadhi Kendras across India.
Under the Free Drugs Service Initiative (FDSI) of the National Health Mission, financial support is provided to States and Union Territories for procurement of free essential medicines in public health facilities based on their Programme Implementation Plans within their resource envelope. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has established facility-wise Essential Medicines Lists with specific quantities: 113 medicines for Sub Health Centre Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, 179 for Primary Health Centre Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, 301 for Community Health Centers, 318 for Sub-District Hospitals, and 381 for District Hospitals.
The scheme supports procurement of drugs and strengthening systems including quality assurance, supply chain management, warehousing, prescription audit, grievance redressal, and establishment of IT-enabled platform DVDMS (Drugs & Vaccine Distribution Management System) with a Central Dashboard for national-level monitoring. Quality assurance requires all drugs to be sourced from GMP-compliant manufacturers and mandates post-supply testing of every batch before distribution to health facilities.
The Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Priyojana (PMBJP), implemented by Pharmaceuticals & Medical Devices Bureau of India (PMBI), offers a product basket of 2,110 medicines and 315 surgicals, medical consumables and devices covering all major therapeutic groups including cardiovascular, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, anti-infectives, anti-allergic, gastro-intestinal medicines and nutraceuticals. Almost all generic medicines from the National List of Essential Medicines are included except lab reagents and vaccines.
To address supply gaps, an incentive scheme since September 2024 rewards Jan Aushadhi Kendra owners for maintaining stocks of 200 commonly used medicines (100 top-selling in PMBJP and 100 fast-selling in the market). The supply chain system includes 5 warehouses and 42 distributors across the country, with 400 fast-moving products monitored regularly and demand estimated continuously using digitized methods. Common Review Missions are conducted annually under NHM to assess implementation progress of various schemes including FDSI.