Delhi government body to streamline drug distribution

In a bid to streamline the distribution of drugs to institutions and ensure their easy availability, the Aam Aadmi Party government had announced setting up of Delhi Medical Supplies Corporation (DMSC). The corporation will be a specialised agency for procurement and supply of drugs, medical equipment and surgical and consumables to the hospitals.

At present, medicines and surgical consumables for all Delhi government institutions are being procured by the Central Procurement Agency (CPA). Officials said that the procurement of medicines at lowest rates could be only done through a centralised bulk purchases.

Centralised drug procurement and making the purchases transparent was part of the Aam Aadmi Party’s 70-point action plan in the run-up to the Delhi Assembly elections 2015.

The government had said that there will be a dedicated full-time warehouse, which will execute procurement of good quality drugs, medial equipment and surgical consumables at reasonable prices.

Officials said that the drugs procured will also undergo quality and inventory checks before being supplied to different government hospitals.

It will also have a buffer stock cell and temperature control within the warehouse. Also, it will have completely IT enabled processes so that there is a dynamic monitoring of stock, supplies and shelf life.

Currently, the CPA does the tendering part on behalf of all the hospitals to decide the different supplies for various types of medicines. Based on rates approved by the CPA, supplies are directly being made to hospitals.

However, the officials said that the CPA did not look into quality-check, warehousing and other aspects of the safety of drugs. Also there are some operational and capacity issues.

The government officials had visited Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan where the model is already in place. The model was also recommended by the Government of India and has been successfully implemented by some states.