Yogi Adityanath govt to break mafia-official nexus in drug purchase

UP to adopt centralised drug procurement by floating Corporation

To break the nexus of mafia and corrupt officials in the purchase of medicines and medical equipment in government hospitals, the Yogi Adityanath government has decided to abolish the system of local purchasing. 

Replicating the model adopted by Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, the state government has decided for the centralised procurement of medicines and medical equipment. 

A government owned company titled UP Medical Supplies Corporation (UPMSC) would be incorporated in Lucknow under the Companies Act 2013. Once the company comes into being and starts functioning, the government would do away with the current practise of 80 percent medicines and medical equipment being purchased at the local level by district medical department officials. The rest of the 20 percent medicines are purchased at the state headquarter level. 

Similarly, the central medicine store depot (CMSD) under the state medical and health department would cease to exist. 

The decision was taken at the state cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Yogi Adityanath here last evening. Later talking to media, UP health minister Siddharthnath Singh said the Corporation would be headed by an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer. 

He said the purchase would be done by the Corporation and supplied to various districts for distribution at the local government hospitals and health centres. 

“The abolition of local purchase would weed out rampant corruption in the process of purchasing medicines and usher in transparency,” he claimed. The whole process of incorporating the new Corporation and its subsequent functioning is likely to take a year. 

The said Corporation, to be funded by the state government, would be started with a share capital of Rs 20 crore having 20 million shares of Rs 10 face value each. Similar corporations are already functioning in Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana, which purchase medicines and other equipment at competitive prices.

During the current fiscal, the UP Budget had allocated about Rs 1,200 crore for the purchase of medicines and medical equipment for supplying to government run hospitals. This includes about Rs 300 crore of central funds under the National Health Mission (NHM). 

The previous UP regimes had also attempted to break the nexus between the medicine supply mafia and local purchase officials by revamping and tweaking drug procurement policies, but it failed to achieve the desired results. 

Given the large scale public and private funds flowing to the medical and health sector, it has always been a happy hunting ground for the corrupt to make a fast buck through commissions and kickbacks in drug procurement. 

The recent case of death of children at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur had also allegedly occurred due to the snapping of oxygen supply in critical care wards. Preliminary reports had indicated towards wilful holding back of payments owing to commissions.