Lack of funds cripples free medicine scheme

The UPA government's big bang promise of providing free generic medicines to all through government hospitals has come a cropper with state governments refusing to implement the scheme without adequate financial help from the Centre. Chetan Chauhan reports. Tamil Nadu’s success story

Updated on: May 24, 2013, 02:15:59 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The UPA government’s big bang promise of providing free generic medicines to all through government hospitals had come as a cropper with the state governments refusing to implement the scheme without adequate financial help.

The UPA government in a bid to reduce in-pocket health expenses from 71 % to 50 % had announced a plan to distribute free generic medicines to all during the 12th five year plan (2012-17).

The government had also said that it would set up a national body ---Central Procurement Agency --- to specify uniform standards for procurement of generic medicines and help state governments procure the medicines at cheapest possible rates.

“Transparent systems should be built to ensure that all procurements adhere to the highest standards,” Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia had told HT in October 2012.

Almost six months later the Planning Commission had a change of heart and cited fund constraint as a reason for agreeing to the health ministry’s proposal in this regard. The initial cost of the scheme was high as money had to be provided for construction of warehouses, building of cold-chain and training of personnel.

“The state government wanted us (the Centre) to provide funds if the scheme was to be to implement,” said a senior government functionary. “But, the planning commission refused to spare that sort of money”.

A plan panel official said that the Finance Ministry had agreed to just 6% increase in plan expenditure for 2013-14 and it did not provide much “flexibility” to them to spare money for starting a new scheme. The government had already approved a new scheme, National Urban Health Mission, earlier this month, which would cost the Centre Rs. 16,955 crore in the 12th plan. The scheme aims to cover 7.75 crore people in towns having population of more than 50,000.

With this, the officials said, there was not enough money to fund the proposal mooted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year. “Now we would advise the state governments on how to provide free medicines to all in a cost effective way,” said a senior health ministry official.

Tamil Nadu has already shown the way by ensuring free medicines to all in-house patients in government hospitals in the state. The Tamil Nadu Medicines Supply Corporation procures generic medicines in bulk up to 1/20th of the market price from pharma companies and supplies them to the government hospitals.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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