Mail News Service
Jamshedpur, Nov 3: Jamshedpur West MLA and senior legislator Saryu Roy raised serious concerns over the functioning and transparency of Jharkhand’s Health Department. Despite being a senior member of the Assembly, Roy claimed that the department had repeatedly denied him access to vital information regarding medicine procurement, including a key inquiry report prepared by a government-appointed committee.
In a letter addressed to the Minister of Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare, Roy questioned the department’s lack of transparency and alleged attempts to conceal critical details related to the purchase of medicines at inflated prices from the Government of India’s pharmaceutical public sector undertakings (PSUs). He urged that all drug purchases in the state be made through open tenders to ensure fairness and accountability.
Roy detailed a long trail of correspondence with the Health Department, beginning with a short notice question he had raised during the fifth Jharkhand Legislative Assembly. In response to that query, the government stated on March 17, 2023, that a three-member committee had been constituted to examine the procurement process of medicines by the Jharkhand Medical and Health Infrastructure Development and Procurement Corporation Limited (JMHIDPCL) from central PSUs. The committee was tasked with submitting its report within a month.
Although Roy was initially invited to a meeting of the committee in May 2023, he said the investigation stalled due to the transfer of the committee’s chairman. The committee was later reconstituted, but despite being directed to seek Roy’s inputs, it never contacted him. Subsequent questions raised by Roy in the Assembly during the winter session in December 2023 and again in August 2024 elicited vague responses from the government.
According to the department’s own reply, the committee’s report was completed and submitted on February 12, 2024. However, despite repeated written requests made on September 2, 2024, and June 3, 2025 and even an application under the Right to Information Act on January 29, 2025, the report had not been provided to him. Roy said the RTI reply he received on March 25, 2025, was “ridiculous” and failed to justify the department’s silence.
In the latest development, Roy said he came across a departmental directive dated October 14, 2025, citing the inquiry committee’s report, which justified the purchase of 103 notified medicines directly from Government of India PSUs, stating it was “as per regulations.” The directive also instructed JMHIDPCL to continue procuring medicines from these PSUs despite the higher costs involved.
Roy criticized this move, pointing out that in most other states, medicines were procured through competitive tenders in which both private and public sector manufacturers participated, ensuring better pricing. He alleged that the Jharkhand government’s decision to bypass tenders and buy directly from PSUs at high rates resulted in unnecessary financial burden on the state.
Highlighting the inflated profit margins in the pharmaceutical sector, Roy noted that drugs were often sold to consumers at nearly ten times their production cost, with most of the profit benefitting intermediaries. He expressed dismay that the Health Department had not even attempted to negotiate better rates with PSU manufacturers.
Roy concluded his letter by demanding that the Health Department immediately release the inquiry report and the related opinion from the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Government of India. He also urged the Health Minister to enforce complete transparency in the state’s drug procurement process through open tenders, emphasizing that the continued secrecy undermined both legislative accountability and public trust.
