‘Should be clearly visible’: Delhi medicine sellers asked to display Covid drug info

The Lieutenant Governor also instructed that similar measures should be taken with regard to equipment like pulse oximeters, oxygen cylinders and oxygen concentrators.

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority on Saturday asked all authorised dealers, retailers and sellers of essential drugs needed for treatment of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Delhi to display information with relation to its stocks and its maximum retail price in clearly visible areas inside their shops or premises for the viewing of the general public. The order also said that this information will have to be updated four times a day.

People wear protective masks in a store at the Bhagirath Palace wholesale medicine market in New Delhi. (Bloomberg)

Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal has instructed that the drugs needed for the treatment of Covid-19 should be made available to the general public. He also highlighted that hoarding, overcharging or black-marketing of these essential drugs should be stopped. He said that the new measure will ensure that such practices are minimised, news agency ANI reported. The DDMA rule states that the information should be updated at 10am, 2pm, 6pm and 9pm daily.

The Lieutenant Governor also instructed that similar measures should be taken with regard to equipment like pulse oximeters, oxygen cylinders and oxygen concentrators.

The Delhi high court previously ordered the Centre and the Delhi government to check black-marketing of essential medicines and medical oxygen as the city raced against time to provide for its Covid-19 patients, many of whom died due to the lack of medical oxygen as well as life-saving drugs. “We are still not understanding the gravity of the situation and that is why we are not coming together. Which is why we are seeing instances of hoarding and black marketing. Our moral fabric has been dismembered to a great extent,” Delhi high court said on May 6.