The Health Minister of Uttarakhand Surendra Singh Negi inaugurated State’s first private generic drug store on Thursday.
Appreciating the effort of the store owner the health minister called upon other businessmen to follow the example and open more such stores where cheap medicines are available. Speaking on the occasion the health minister said that the State Government was planning to implement an ambitious scheme ‘Generic medicine to all’ in Uttarakhand and the previous UPA Government was positive to provide necessary funds but under NDA regime funds were not provided for the scheme.
Explaining the significance of the generic drugs the owner ‘affordable medicine store’ Rajneesh Agarwal said branded drugs are in fact generics with different brand names. Giving an example he said that a 10 tablet strip of paracetamol can be made available for only `10 while same salt when becomes branded costs ten to fifteen times more. He said that the doctors need to write generic medicines and patients can check the generic version of brand atwww.affordablemedicinestore.com.