Pharmacists, popularly known as "Swasth ke Sipahi", of Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Kendra , are deliverying essential services and medicines at doorstep of patients and elderly under Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) of the Government of India. Working as part of Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Kendras (PMJAK), they are extending essential services by making available quality generic medicines at affordable prices to the common People of the country and the elderly persons at their doorstep to fight Corona pandemic. This is supporting the government's initiative of practicing social distancing.

 PMJKs are being run by Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India(BPPI) under Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers, Government of India with an objective of providing quality and affordable healthcare to anyone in need. Presently, more than 6300 PMJAKs are functioning across the nation, covering 726 districts of the country. 

In order to stop the spreading of Coronavirus, Government of India placed a lockdown of 21 days i.e. up to 14th April, 2020, across the country. 

In such times, all PMJAKs are playing a key role in ensuring availability of essential medicines and delivering them at their doorstep. As informed by BPPI, recently, one of their “Swasth ke Sipahi” shared his experience. He told Babout an elderly woman who called him at PMBJK, Pahadiya, Varanasi asking for help. According to the Pharmacist, the elderly woman lives with her husband in Varansi, alone and had exhausted the stock of her daily medicines. Consuming these medicines regularly is critical to maintain her bodily functions. The pharmacist could not stop himself from helping the couple. He collected the medicines, as she asked and set out to deliver the same at her house. Since then, pharmacist has been delivering medicines to the sick and elderly at their doorstep.

one central warehouse in Gurugram, two regional warehouses at Guwahati and Chennai and around 50 distributors are working towards ensuring a surplus supply of the medicines to all the kendras, across the country. In order to control the supplies of the medicines,   set up a strong SAP based end to end point of sales software to avoid any stockout situation. mobile application “Jan Aushadhi Sugam” is also available for common public to locate their nearest kendra and availability of medicines with its price. The app. can be downloaded from Google Play Store and I-phone Store.

In the lockdown period, Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP) is generating awareness through informational posts on their social media platforms, to help people protect themselves from Coronavirus. You can also get updates by following us @pmbjpbppi at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

RCJ/RKM