BMC fast-tracks zero-prescription policy, rollout by mid-October

MUMBAI: The delay in the rollout of the zero-prescription policy for the city’s civic hospitals—originally slated for April—has led to additional municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar calling for additional manpower to complete the verification process for the tender by September 6. The deadline given to award a letter of intent (LOI) to the winning bidder is September 15 so that Phase 1 of the policy can be implemented by late September or mid-October.
The policy, which was announced by the BMC in November 2023, was to provide free medicines in civic hospitals instead of patients having to purchase them from pharmacies outside. This was to be done by expanding the schedule of medicines, drugs and surgical items available at the hospitals from 1,000 to 4,000.
“The last date for bids on the tender called by the Central Purchase Department (CPD) was July 24,” said Bangar. “The bids include documents about the technical quality of each item. Sometimes, double the documents are asked for if the bidder is not a manufacturer of a medicine and instead has a tie-up with a manufacturer. Since the CPD does not have the technical manpower, we had formed two teams, one from Nair Hospital and another from the CPD, which include pharmacists, senior pharmacists, data entry operators and others to carry out the verification.”
This, however, proved to take too long, obstructing the policy’s rollout.
Bangar held a meeting on the issue on Friday with the CPD and public health officials to arrive at solutions, and it was decided that additional manpower and computers would be recruited, through an agency engaged on a contractual basis to speed up the verification. “Just because there are a lot of documents, the process cannot be allowed to take forever,” said Bangar. “Teams will be formed and progress will be reviewed daily.”
A deadline of September 6 has been given to complete the verification of all the documents. Following this, the BMC aims to give the winning bidder a letter of intent by September 15, essentially accepting the bid. “It will then take two to four weeks to get Phase 1 of the policy working on ground, although some medicines may have to be retendered,” said Bangar.
In the 2024-25 BMC budget released in February, the BMC had allocated ₹500 crore for the policy, which was to be rolled out by April 1. The policy addresses the long-standing artificial shortage of medicines at BMC-run hospitals, which forces patients to shell out large sums to buy medicines. A separate fee structure will be in place for patients coming from outside Mumbai. HT’s report on May 10, 2023 had highlighted the artificial shortage of medicines at BMC-run hospitals which, in turn, forced patients to buy medicines, gloves, saline, medical dressing material and so on from outside.
Bangar also gave instructions that the three-year-old tender for MRI machines in civic hospitals should be finalised soon. “This is the fourth extension of the tender,” he said. “We have received one bid and are awaiting one more.”