The non-purchase of medicines by the Bihar government and the resulting scarcity of essential drugs in government hospitals on Thursday rang in the legislative Council as Opposition legislators slammed the treasury bench to demand immediate redressal of the issue.

BJP chief whip in the Council Rajnish Kumar brought an adjournment motion and sought a discussion on the ma-tter. Supported by other MLCs, he said the state government was not buying medicines since June 2014 after a scam of over Rs 100 crore surfaced in their purchase by Bihar Medical Services and Infrastructure Corporation Limited.

"No medicines are available in big and small government hospitals across the state. The poor are suffering because of it and the lives of patients are at stake. Immediate remedial measures should be taken," Rajnish said while moving the adjournment motion.

Legislative Council chairman Awadhesh Narayan Singh rejected the motion, which was again raised during the Zero Hour with full gusto.

Sushil Kumar Modi, the leader of Opposition in the Council, said though the government allowed civil surgeons to purchase medicines worth Rs 1 lakh per month and raised the limit to Rs 2 lakh, they were afraid of buying them.

"The civil surgeons are not even calling tenders for supply of medicines. As a result, there is a grave scarcity of 112 types of drugs meant to be available in the indoor department of government hospitals and 33 drugs that have to be made available in the outpati-ent department (OPD). The-se medicines are given free of cost to people, but only 20 of the-m are available," Sushil said.

The exclusion of youths in the age group of 20 to 25 years, who have studied beyond Class XII, from availing Rs 1,000 self-help allowance per month for two years to search for jobs as part of chief minister Nitish Kumar's seven resolves was also raised in the Upper House by the BJP legislators when a question posed by Congress MLC Dilip Kumar Cha-udhary on it came up.

"The scheme was announced before 2015 Assembly polls. Nitish Kumar took votes by promising self help allowa-nce, but later riders and conditions were attached in September 2016, just before the scheme was launched (on October 2)," the BJP leader said.

NBFCs crackdown

Finance minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui today assured the Upper House that the state government was concerned over unregistered and unauthorised non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) taking money from the public and then cheating them of their savings.

Autorickshaws meters

Transport minister Chandrika Rai said in the House that a meeting of passengers, autorickshaw associations, public representatives and government officials would be called to discuss the demand for installing fare meters in autorickshaws and implementing meter-based fare system in Patna.