
COIMBATORE: During his Independence Day address last year, Chief Minister M K Stalin announced that 1,000 pharmacies would be opened across the state under the Mudhalvar Marunthagam scheme from Pongal to sell generic medicines at affordable prices.
The launch has been delayed as officials are yet to complete scrutiny of applications and also due to issues in procurement of generic medicines, sources said.
The scheme would come under the registrar of cooperative societies under the cooperative department. Generic medicines would be procured by the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation. Other medicines and equipment will be procured by the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Consumer Federation.
Those who have completed B Pharm/ D Pharm courses can file applications seeking allotment of shops. The state government will give a subsidy of Rs 3 lakh each-- Rs 1.5 lakh for infrastructure development and Rs 1.5 lakh for procuring medicines.
Selected applicants are provided with training on how to handle the software, billing, procurement from warehouses online, report stocks, etc. A total of 39 pharmacies have been allotted to Coimbatore. Of this, 22 will be operated directly by cooperative societies and 17 are to be run by individuals.
A senior official in the cooperative department, said, “We are expecting the pharmacies to be launched soon. Until then, we will be giving training to staff and pharmacy owners. On Friday, we held a state-wide video conference with applicants and explained about the project and taught them how to run these pharmacies.”
The officer added that the delay in launch due to the number of applicants. “We have received numerous applications, it is necessary to select qualified candidates. The department is scrutinising the applications. Once we decide the 1,000 allottees, the scheme will be launched. The tentative date for launch has been fixed as February 15.”
A senior official in the Cooperation, Food and Consumer Protection Department stated they received 1,131 applications across the state of which 491 are from cooperative societies and the remaining 640 are from individuals. “The cooperative department currently operates more than 380 pharmacies under a different scheme where people can get general medicines.
The Mudhalvar Marunthagam project is focuses on sale of generic medicines. We are scrutinising applications and plan to open 1,000 pharmacies in the first phase. The launch of the project is delayed due to issues related to procurement of medicines. Some medicines have quality control issues. We hope to launch the project in February 2025,” the officer said.