During the preparation of House of Skills Project, it was found that there are number of Ex-servicemen (ESM) with specialized training certificates and experience in pharmacy and medical nursing acquired during their military service, registered with KEXCON for suitable employment. The private medical stores often exploited patients by selling medicines at exorbitant prices and also duplicate medicines under the guise of branded names, such as “Karunya”, “Neethi”, “Nanma”, “Aswas” etc. Though the Ex-servicemen are members of a healthcare programme known as the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS), the programme at present is suffering from acute shortage of supply of medicines due to paucity of funds. Hence the ESM are compelled to procure the non-available medicines from local medical outlets. As such, there is a demand for medicines by the Ex-servicemen too besides the general public in the open market. In order to tap this demand for medicines, this Corporation conceptualized a project known as “KEXCON Neethi Medicals” to be implemented during the financial year 2020-21 with some guidance from State Consumer Fed. Two outlets (one each in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode districts) are intended to be opened in the vicinity of General Hospitals/Medical Colleges etc where medicines are likely to be in demand. The objectives of the project will be to engage qualified ESM and their dependents while ensuring provision of quality/branded medicines to customers at discounted prices. It will be possible to provide medicines to the customers at prices less than 18% to 40% of the MRP under this project, enabled by wholesale procurement of medicines from centralized wholesale outlets/Neethi warehouse and by direct purchase from Medical Service Corporation set up by Health Department, Government of Kerala. The margins expected from the sale of medicine will be utilized to offer incentives to ESM, serving military personnel and their dependents. Additional incentives are also intended for patients suffering from serious ailments such as cancer, kidney, cardiac problems etc on humanitarian considerations.
The estimated project cost is also proposed to be shared between KEXCON and the Government Plan Funds proportionately. The project proposal was processed through Sainik Welfare Directorate, discussed with the State Planning Board and submitted onward to the Government for approval and allotment of funds for the year 2020-21.