Jammu and Kashmir Medical Supplies Corporation (JKMSCL) Tuesday said that the corporation has taken a string of measures including strengthening of online platform and encouragement to fair competition and garnering of competitive prices for procurement and distribution of drugs.
As per the Corporation, last year it provided drugs andmedicines worth Rs 96 Cr to various health institutions of the state.
“JKMSCL has at present the rate contract available for 949drugs including suture material, disposable items and also R.C is available for154 machine equipments including hospital furniture items”, the corporationsaid in a statement.
As per budgetary distribution JKMSCL is supposed to placepurchase orders for 75% of total budget and 25% are made available to HODs tomeet the emergencies in the hospital. And in case JKMSCL is not able tofinalize any item due to poor response in tendering, NOC for the same item isbeing issued.
To minimize delay in timely processing of legitimate claimsof the bona fide suppliers of drugs the government has streamlined the fundingpattern to JKMSCL from the current financial year. This would prove as a shotin the arm in JKMSCL’s endeavour to provide quality medicines at competitiverates in a time bound manner to the health institutions of the state.
In addition, the JKMSCL is undertaking e-procurement of Drugs & Machinerythrough Open Tendering in a fair and transparent manner through registeredvendors. However, to further encourage fair competition and in its endeavour togarner competitive prices, JKMSCL has dispensed with mandatory registration inorder to maximise competition and ensure competitive rates without compromisingon the quality of drugs and prospective bidders through an inherent system of checksand balances.
Online Supply Chain Management Software DVDMS, whichmonitors procurement and distribution of drugs on an online platform has beenstrengthened by effectively highlighting the numerous advantages of such systemand chalking out training schedules in this regard for the end users to ensurethat a robust and effective online system is put in place which would ensuretimely placement of demand for drugs of health institutions of the state &their consequent distribution in sync with such demand.
Further, in order to prioritise procurement of onlyessential drugs in consonance with the available Budget, Essential Drug List isbeing pruned from the existing number of 850 odd drugs to 300 in toto whichwould ensure focused attention on procurement of essential drugs in parity withavailable budget.