Given its importance and responsibilities, Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation Limited (KSMSCL) is one of the key government agencies. Despite all the challenges especially during the pandemic and its aftermath, KSMSCL wants to stay focussed on its job as mandated by its vision “To provide universal and equitable access to quality drugs and state of the art medical equipment & supplies to all and converge efforts with the larger goal of the State to provide quality healthcare services for all.“
The main objective of KSMSCL is procurement/storage/supply of essential drugs and consumables. Sources in KSMSCL said there is transparency while procuring medicines from various pharma industries. “It is open to all. We take stakeholders’ opinions before arriving at a decision. We also have committees (comprising senior officials) to evaluate bidding process.”
They said, “To ensure quality, we test samples selected randomly from all batches of drugs supplied to ware houses. It is our sincere efforts to ensure there is transparency in our day-to-day dealings so that there are no allegations.”
Elaborating further, officials said, “We are streamlining all the procurement process and documentation, quality control and supply of essential drugs without any obstacles based on Tamil Nadu Medical Supplies Corporation Ltd. Our team visited TNMSCL for first-hand information. E-payment system is in the pipeline and should be operational in the days to come.”
Officials said, “There were some issues during 2020-21 and 2021-22 as far as supply of drugs was concerned. To avoid any confusion, we have already issued purchase orders for more than 200 drugs for the year 2022-23. We want to ensure supply of drugs without any obstacles and we are working on it.”
They emphasised the fact that their organisation follows administrative procedures before finalising bids and they have a dedicated grievances’ redressal application and currently they are strengthening this and working towards removing any gaps whatsoever in this application.
The other area, according to them, is HR department which will be upgraded to meet the changing scenario. “We can say we are not fully equipped to meet the expectations but our sincere endeavour is to achieve the set targets in the days to come.”
KSMSCL wants to ensure it is recognised for its quality service in the days to come so that its mission objective which is to ensure the reach of quality and affordable healthcare services in a transparent and equitable manner to all; by delivering essential drugs, medical equipment and lab consumables in a timely manner to public healthcare systems by efficient procurement, storage and supply chain management is fulfilled.
