Vijayawada: Anna Sanjivini, medical stores on the premises of both the government general hospitals in Vijayawada, will be closed soon. The Anna Sanjivini stores were permitted to be run by the District Rual Development Authority (DRDA) nine years ago.
These stores were opened in addition to the regular drug counters at the hospitals. Power to these stores was supplied free of cost and the stores were named as Dr. YSR Jeevanadhara Pharmacy. Later, the name was changed as anna Sanjivini. Now, the DRDA has decided to close these shops.
If any medicine is not available in the hospital, the patients can get those drugs from these outlets, located in a prime area in the hospital.
The Anna Sanjivini stores do about 20 per cent business. The authorities of both the hospitals allocated these shops free of cost. These shops would charge the patients less than the MRP for medicines. However, after some time, the list of drugs being kept available for sale at the usual medical shops increased and the Sanjivini stores began making losses.
So the DRDA decided to close the shops in the old and new government hospitals.
Speaking to DC, a member of the Hospital Development Society, G.V Umamaheswara Rao said the stock of drugs in the Sanjeevini stores would be sold out. However, the regular drug stores on the premises of the old and new government hospitals are not ready to buy the medicines at Sanjivini.
Mr Rao said that the Sanjeevini stores would be allocated to the Prime Minister Jana Aushadhi franchisee. The deal will e finalised within 10 days, he added.
He said that the hospital authorities lost about '80 lakh by allocating the shop free of cost to the DRDA.
DRDA project director D. Chandra Sekhar Raju said, “In fact, it is not a loss. There are no profits commensurate with our effort. We could not focus on running the stores for profit as we had some other works. This led to malpractice. There are 6.15 lakh SHGs and 6.33 lakh members. We are providing Rs 1,500 cr under Bank Linkage and Rs 200 cr under other components. The paltry income that we get from these shops is insignificant to benefit a large number of SHGs.”
Many private shops also came. So, we want to withdraw” he added.
