Delhi’s central procurement agency procured drugs from four pharmaceutical firms that had been blacklisted by other states, according to a CAG report last week which audited health services and infrastructure in the national capital from 2016-17 to 2021-22. 

Newslaundry has now found that at least three of these firms also got contracts during the same period through the government of India’s Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana, which aims to provide affordable medicines through Jan Aushadhi Kendras. 

The issue of procuring medicines from blacklisted firms has been a recurring controversy in Delhi – it had triggered a war of words last year too with the BJP-led Centre and the AAP-led Delhi government trying to blame each other for substandard medicines making their way to the capital’s government hospitals. 

Experts have attributed these failures to the lack of a centralised database of blacklisted pharmaceutical companies.