Pharma traders seek SRTC help to transport medicines to Kashmir

JAMMU: Facing hurdles to deliver stock of medicines in Kashmir amid lockdown, the Jammu and Kashmir pharma traders are mulling to rent State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) trucks to deliver medicines in all parts of the Union Territory.
“We have sufficient stock of medicines but facing problems in distributing especially in Kashmir region due to lockdown. We will take up this issue with government tomorrow,” Pharama Traders and Jammu Chamber of Commerce Industries (JCCI) president (restrained) Rakesh Gupta told The News Now.
“We will urge government to provide us SRTC trucks on rent basis to deliver medicines in Kashmir region,” he said.
Moreover, the Drug Controller J&K, Lotika Khajuria asked the officials to ensure uninterrupted and hassle free supply of life saving and essential medicines in the whole distribution chain to the end users across the UT of J&K.
The meeting was conducted post the outbreak of COVID 19 and subsequent implementation of Pan India lockdown to ensure that there is no shortage of essential lifesaving medicines to the patients and end users across J&K.
It was informed that there are sufficient stocks of all kinds of essential medicines at the depot level and in the supply chain as of now, however the pharma dealers raised the concerns that they are facing certain difficulties under the present restrictions with respect to the transportation of medicines both at the inter and intra state levels.
Taking immediate cognizance of the difficulties, certain steps were initiated for removal of such difficulties by taking up the matter with the administration for their immediate removal to ensure smooth movement of consignments of life saving essential medicines.
In this context, a whatsapp group was constituted comprising officers of the Drug Control Department and the depot holders of all the major MNC’S to maintain a coherent coordination to ensure that there is no shortage of any lifesaving medicines which has been shared with the stake holders.
All the Assistant Drug Controllers at the district level have been instructed to ensure the availability of all lifesaving medicines and report shortage of any kind of medicines on the whatsapp group No 9797134137 on the designed format so that prompt action will initiated to ensure the availability of particular class of medicines.
Further the Enforcement / Empowered authorities across the UT have been instructed to ensure that social distancing is strictly maintained at the retail medical outlets as responsible citizens to contain the spread of novel Coronavirus (COVID 19).

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