Diabetic Prashant Kumar and leprosy patient Nikita Ranjan recently had to run around several stores in the city to get their medicines, and many in the trade said there was a drug shortage because of the goods and services tax (GST).

Nikita, an Anandpuri resident, went to three shops last week in vain to get Dapsone, her skin medicine. She finally got the drug from a shop on Govind Mitra Road.

Boring Road resident Prashant too could get his blood sugar medicines only on the fourth try.

"I first went to Navrup Medico near the planetarium but the person at the shop said there was a shortage of a few medicines because of billing issues with the introduction of GST," said Nikita.

Navrup Medico owner Sunil Kumar admitted some drugs were unavailable at his shop, and blamed GST-implementation hiccups.

"Under the new system, the harmonised system nomenclature (HSN) code of each product has to be mentioned in the bill," Sunil explained. "As the code is different for different drugs, it becomes a cumbersome job for stockists to make the bill - they have to feed the different HSN numbers for the products. It's a time consuming job. This is why drug warehouses are also taking time in billing because of which we stockists are getting less stocks and what we get are exhausted soon. At present, I don't have a few diabetes medicines and skin medicines. The medical representatives have, however, assured us that things will improve."

A person at Dadiji Medical Store on SP Verma Road admitted there was a shortage but said the situation had improved from around a month ago.

"We are facing little problem in procuring drugs," he said. "Earlier, we would get all kinds of drugs from one distributor. Now we have to approach five to six of them. The problem was worse when distributors were confused about the post-GST prices and no one was purchasing any new stock. Now, the flow of medicines has improved. The shortage is likely to be over within a fortnight."

Another shopkeeper at Janata Medical Store on Boring Road blamed the crisis on chemists and wholesalers: "Many drug sellers have not updated their software. Under GST, they won't be able to sell medicines until and unless they generate a proper bill."

Parsan Kumar Singh, president, Bihar Chemists and Druggists Association, said chemists who did not generate bills for medicines sold in pre-GST days were the ones facing problems now..

"Those who sell drugs with proper bills shouldn't face any problem," he said. "They only have to make little changes to the billing procedure. All this will take a little time to get on track but things will become easier in the coming days."