Gopika I S By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If things go as planned, city dwellers will soon have an outlet where medicines are available at reasonable rates. The Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation is all set to open a medical store - Ananthapuri Medicals, one of the dream projects aimed at providing medicines to the people in the city at subsidised rates, by October first week in the Saphalyam complex in Palayam. “The interior works are complete. We are hiring two staff for the medical store. The rank list will be brought before the corporation council in the next meeting. The shop will be opened once we get the approval. We have paid almost `6.5 lakh for medicines and the stock will arrive once we are ready to function. In future we will increase the number of outlets and there is no profit expectancy in the project,” said a corporation health department official. “There are a few other outlets providing subsidised medicines. However, it is often limited to a certain percentage. The expense of medicines is one of the key issues faced by patients now. In our case, we will give the maximum subsidy possible to the customers. We are purchasing medicines from the government bodies and will sell at the lowest possible rate,” the official said. The corporation’s ambitions for the project do not end here. “It is a service oriented project. We already purchase medicines for the primary health centres under us. That was the root of the idea of a corporation-owned medical store. Once the first shop is opened, we plan on slowly opening these shops in each of our wards,” said Deputy Mayor Rakhi Ravikumar. Lack of sufficient infrastructure in the health sector was a noted point in all the budgets of the corporation in the recent past. Future plans ? Ananthapuri Medicals, one of the dream projects of the corporation, aims to provide medicines to the people in the city at subsidised rates ? In future, the civic body plans to increase the number of outlets and there is no profit expectancy in the project ? Once the first shop is opened, the corporation plans on slowly opening these shops in each of its wards

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