‘Entire exercise of allotment carried out by competent authority as per established norms’

Jammu/April,7: The 3-Member Inquiry Committee comprising Commissioner/Secretary, Health & Medical Education, Dr M K Bhandari as Chairman, Director Finance, H&ME, Zahoor Ahmed and Additional Secretary H&ME, K.S. Chib as Members, constituted by the Government to look into the aspects related to the allotment of 55 shops in the Government Hospitals in Jammu province has submitted its detailed findings.
The Committee has examined various aspects related to the allotment of tender for establishing Pharmacies inside the premises of government health institutions across the Jammu province and has found that the entire exercise of allotment of tenders has been carried out by the competent authority as per the established norms and did not find any merit in the objections raised by the J&K Chemists and Druggists Association against the process.
The Inquiry Committee was constituted by the Government in the backdrop of 3-day bandh call given by the J&K Chemists and Druggists Association, Jammu in the first week of February, 2017 against the establishment of these shops in the government health institutions and had raised several objections to this effect and had called for an inquiry in the tendering process.
The Inquiry Committee has in its report, accepted by the Government, observed that the decision of establishing the Pharmacies in the premises of the government health institutions was unanimously taken in a meeting chaired by the then Minister for Health & Medical Education on 25-10-2015 and the task of tendering process for these shops was assigned to JKMSCL (Jammu and Kashmir Medical Supplies Corporation Ltd). The decision was also aimed at generating revenue for improving the maintenance in health institutions from the sanitation perspective by outsourcing such activities, apart from providing quality medicines to the patients in the peripheral institutions as well.
The JKMSCL adopted the open tendering process in a transparent manner as per norms. The tender documents were issued by the JKMSCL as e-bid to invite maximum bid with a view to generate maximum revenue for the government which will be utilized for improving the healthcare in the government institutions.
The company M/S Sanyog Enterprises is Qualified Company in terms of the technical bid and the qualifying criteria for the tender of opening and running 24×7 Pharmacy Shops and only on the basis of that, it declared qualified and successful after being the highest bidder at the financial bid stage. The company is required to provide a minimum of 10 per cent discount on the MRP and will also ensure providing over 400 drugs on the rates of Jan Aushadhi Scheme (which is 30-40 per cent less than market rate), the Report says.