A budget crunch has led to a severe shortage of medicines for veterans of the armed forces and their families, especially when it comes to life-saving drugs
NEW DELHI : A budget crunch has led to a severe shortage of medicines for veterans of the armed forces and their families, especially when it comes to life-saving drugs. The problem is severe at polyclinics that are not located near military hospitals.
The Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) on which around five million veterans and their families are dependant, is severely short of medicines for treating cancer and heart ailments. A reason why this is happening is due to the limited ‘vote-on-account’ budget. Under the vote-on-account, the ECHS can only spend 33% of its full budget for a financial year. This is for the first three months of the financial year starting from April or until the budget is passed. The ECHS has been allotted between Rs 3,000 crore and Rs 4,000 crore this year and on an average this amount is given every year. The vote-on-account budget is first spent on committed liabilities, such as payments for previous supply orders, which leaves insufficient funds for the present requirement of medicines.
“The vote-on-account budget is not adequate to meet the committed liabilities of the previous years such as medicine orders and even the requirement of medicines for the first three months of the financial year or until the full budget is passed.
So there is a gap in the supply,” explained sources, adding that there is a need for over Rs 200 crore for medicines.
Due to the shortage in funds, fresh orders for the medicine supply chains of the three defence services — Army, IAF and Navy — have not been placed. Under the supply chains, the military hospitals across India procure the medicines and then supply it to the ECHS polyclinics.
These polyclinics supply the medicines to the ex-servicemen. Sources explained that if the supply chain is good then the polyclinics don’t have to spend much from their monthly budget on procuring medicinest he medicines and then supply it to the ECHS polyclinics.
These polyclinics supply the medicines to the ex-servicemen. Sources explained that if the supply chain is good then the polyclinics don’t have to spend much from their monthly budget on procuring medicines. 
“Every year, the ECHS is short of about Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 crore for its overall requirements, including those for heart and cancer patients,” said sources.
For example, there is a shortage of medicines for Hepatitis B, cancer and arthritis in most of the polyclinics in Uttarakhand. The problem is compounded in those polyclinics which are not co-located to military hospitals, so procuring medicines is difficult. Several times, the ALCs may not have life-saving drugs.
..