Delhi to replace Central Procurement agency with its own DMSC

Delhi government is setting up Delhi Medical Supplies Corporation (DMSC) which will be a specialised agency for procurement and supply of drugs, medical equipments and surgical and consumables to hospitals.
The idea is to streamline the distribution of drugs to institutions and ensuring availability of drugs at all times.
At present, medicines and surgical consumables for all Delhi government institutions are being procured by Central Procurement Agency (CPA).
"There will be a dedicated full-time warehouse, which will execute procurement of good quality drugs, medial equipments, surgical consumables at reasonable prices.
"Drugs here will also undergo quality and inventory checks before being supplied to different government hospitals," said SCL Das, State Secretary (Health).

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

Currently, 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 CPA, supplies are directly being made to hospitals.
"It did not look into quality-check, warehousing and other aspects of the safety of drugs. Also there are some operational and capacity issues. This was also recommended by Government of India and some states have also implemented the same successfully," said Das.

The procurement of medicines at lowest rates could be ensured due to the centralised bulk purchase.
Apart from that, government is also procuring 110 state-of-art modern ambulances equipped with life saving equipments along with upgrading the CATS control room for which
tendering has been done.
"The first batch of 65 ambulances will be delivered in April. The prototype is already been made and is under evaluation.
"The modern control room for CATS ambulance will have caller identification, GIS/GPS system facilities to locate nearest available ambulances. The aims to fulfil the gap between the home to hospital emergency care," Das said.