Action plan required in reviving the productivity of State owned Government Ayurvedic Pharmacies

Abstract

This review aimed to highlight various aspects of policies and initiatives related to the state-owned government Ayurvedic pharmacies. The vision of the Ministry of AYUSH concerning state-owned Ayurvedic pharmacies is to strengthen the OPDs, IPDs of Hospitals & dispensaries to attain healthy Nation. Although various programs have been taken up towards increasing production in state-owned Government Ayurvedic pharmacies, due to their noncompliance, the pharmacies are still underperforming. Actions are therefore required to enhance the quality of production and ensure supplies. The main issues related to pharmacy function include, underutilization of installed and operational capacity of the unit, non-feasible procurement policy, absence of motivation , absence of opportunities to skill development and knowledge updation, lack of an organogram, non-compliance of pharmacies with standards like G.M.P and ISO 9000-2001 , absence of S.O.P for each product, absence of communication with end users like hospitals and dispensaries, poor labelling and packaging are discussed in the present paper with their probable solutions. Implementation of these steps towards the promotion and development of state-owned Ayurvedic pharmacies would help improve their qualitative production and in turn will help regaining the trust of common people for Ayurveda who are visiting state dispensaries and hospitals and are dispensed with Ayurveda medicines manufactured at state owned Ayurveda pharmacies.