AMRIT pharmacy scheme completes one year

The AMRIT pharmacies stock nearly 2,200 drugs, surgical disposables and implants (including for cardiovascular, cancer and diabetes, stents etc.) that are offered at an average discount of 63 percent on medicines.

In the first year of operation, the AMRIT pharmacies have benefited a total of 5.14 lakh patients. They have achieved collective sales of 18.51 crores of medicines worth Rs 48.19 crores in MRP, resulting in total savings of Rs 29.68 crores.

"We are extremely proud to have achieved a milestone of servicing more than 5 lakh patients in the very first year of operation. This number will continue to exponentially grow as we open more pharmacy outlets in different states," said HLL Chairman and Managing Director Shri R P Khandelwal. "Our goal is to ensure that no patient is deprived of life-saving and other drugs for reasons of unaffordability."

The first AMRIT pharmacy opened at AIIMS in New Delhi, with the capital city now having four in total. AMRIT outlets have been opened in major government hospitals in cities including Chandigarh, Raipur, Rishikesh, Pondicherry, Bhopal, Guwahati, Shillong and Imphal. Cities where the pharmacies will be operational soon include Nagpur, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, Kolkata, Mumbai, Tezpur, Jorhat and Agartala.

MoHFW is hoping that initiatives such as AMRIT, which offer affordable drugs and medical implants will ease the burden of the common man, especially the underserved.