Scams in the Procurement and Distribution System for Medicines and Medical Supplies for State Government PHCs, Dispensaries, and Hospitals:

One of the areas that needs immediate attention of the Government is the purchase and distribution of drugs and medical supplies, which has been marked by major scams and bunglings (detailed in the press articles described in the Legal Notice, below). To prevent these failures, the State Cabinet decided in June 2003, vide decision No. 115/8, dated 23/6/2003, that all of the State's drugs and medical supplies should be procured and distributed by an autonomous, efficient, and transparent medical supplies corporation.  The State Cabinet wished that this entity, the J&K Medical Supplies Corporation, would be patterned after the World Bank- and Government of India-promoted Tamil Nadu Medical Supplies Corporation, which has received acclaim for its highly transparent and efficient procurement systems (see: http://tnmsc.tn.nic.in/). 

Astonishingly, despite the passage of more than 2 years since the State Cabinet decision and a subsequent Government Order (No. 813-HME of 2003), the Department of Health and Medical Education has failed to establish this autonomous procurement and distribution agency.  Instead, the Department has been using the interim arrangement of the internal, in-house Central Purchase Committee [CPC], which is highly inefficient, and has been implicated in a major scam uncovered last year.  For these reasons, SCOPE has given legal notice to the Government to implement the State Cabinet's decision so that a transparent and efficient system is established.

Legal Notice Sent to J&K Government, 27/7/2005 [PDF]
Move to J&K High Court on 1/9/2005