Gap in price of branded and Janaushadhi medicine

Feb. 11: Under the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) being implemented by the Department of Pharmaceuticals, a medicine is priced on the principle of maximum of 50% of average price of the top three brands of the said medicine. Thus, the prices of Jan Aushadhi Medicines are cheaper at least by 50% and in some cases, by 80% to 90% of the market price of the branded medicines.

Pharmaceuticals & Medical Devices Bureau of India (PMBI), the implementing agency of the Scheme has presently its warehouses situated at Gurugram, Chennai and Guwahati. In addition, there are 39 number of distributors spread all across the country.  A total of six warehouses are envisaged by March 2025.

As on 31 January, 2022, about 8,675 PMBJP Kendras have been opened in all the districts of the country so as to ensure accessibility of quality affordable generic medicines. In order to ensure availability of medicines, an Information Technology (IT) enabled End-to-End supply chain system with Point-of-Sale (POS) application for value added services has been implemented by PMBI to monitor end to end supply chain management system. All warehouses have SAP based inventory management system and the demand forecasting is done through the said system so as to place orders as per the desired inventory levels.

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) under the Department of Pharmaceuticals regulates the prices of all drugs – whether branded or generic. While it fixes the ceiling price of scheduled medicines specified in the first schedule of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, in case of non-scheduled medicines, the manufactures are free to fix Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of the drug. However, DPCO provides that the same do not increase by more than 10% of their MRP during the preceding twelve months. The details of retail/ceiling prices fixed/ revised by NPPA are available on NPPA’s website, viz.,  www.nppaindia.nic.in.

PMBI spreads awareness about generic medicines through various types of advertisements such as TV, FM Radio, Auto wrapping, Cinema, Bus Brandings, State Transport Bus Stands, Digital Screen Advertisement at Railway Stations, etc. In addition, PMBI also educates the public regularly about usages of Jan Aushadhi generic medicines through various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc. The Bureau also organizes seminars and workshops to spread awareness about the scheme. Further, to propagate achievements of the scheme and create awareness about its benefits Jan Aushadhi Diwas is celebrated every year on 7^th March.

The information was given by the Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Shri Mansukh Mandaviya in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.