Rs 10-crore medicines, equipment damaged at Ambala warehouse

Nitish Sharma

Ambala, July 29

Medicines and equipment worth around Rs 10 crore have been damaged at the regional warehouse in Ambala Cantonment during the recent floods.

Though a final survey is yet to be done, health officials believe that the stock of medicine worth around Rs 9.50 crore, some office equipment, a walk-in cooler, furniture, cold chain instruments, computer and some other articles were completely damaged.

Alternative arrangements

• Haryana Medical Services Corporation Limited has seven warehouses in the state in Ambala, Karnal, Hisar, Rohtak, Kaithal, Gurugram, and Bhiwani
• Medicines are being arranged from the other six warehouses
• In case of non-availability, the medicine is being procured from the open market

The warehouse, which was established in Ambala in 2013, caters to the three districts of Ambala, Panchkula and Yamunanagar. The health officials said that the stock was insured under the warehouse’s insurance cover of Rs 14.52 crore. The warehouse is situated in the industrial area, which was one of the worst-affected areas due to the overflowing of the Tangri river.

As per the health officials, there were seven such warehouses of Haryana Medical Services Corporation Limited in the state –Ambala, Karnal, Hisar, Rohtak, Kaithal, Gurugram, and Bhiwani. The medicines were issued for the general hospitals, sub-division hospital, UPHCs, PHCs and CHCs, as per their demand and availability of the stock, from these warehouses.

Sources said, “Earlier, the supplies were hampered for nearly three months due to the revision of the rate contract, recently the supplies had started getting streamlined but now the flood has hampered the operations.” Warehouse Manager Dr Vishal Gupta said “Two preliminary surveys have been conducted and the main survey of stock counting will be done soon. There was a stock of around Rs 12-15 crore in the warehouse.”

“As the stocks was damaged here, medicines are being arranged from the other six warehouses. In case of non-availability of a medicine, the same is procured from the open market. We have started receiving fresh stocks and operations have been started from an alternate building,” he added. “We have requested the headquarters to get the warehouse renovated and raise the height of the building by at least three feet,” he said.

Meanwhile, Civil Surgeon Dr Kuldeep Singh said, “Medicines are being arranged from the other warehouses so that there is no shortfall here.”