New Delhi, June 4 (IANS): The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Thursday said it will open public medical stores at its centres across the country to help the people find medicines relating to common ailments.

The first store will be inaugurated in the national capital-based IMA headquarters by Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers Hansraj Gangaram Ahir.

"The public medical stores will be set up first on the premises of the IMA headquarters and depending on its success, similar stores will be started at the organisations' centres in other states of the country," IMA vice president K.K. Aggarwal told IANS.

He said that initially, the centre will have 119 medicines related to common health ailments such as blood pressure, cough, heart problems, among others.

However, once it gets the nod from the government for other medicines, the stores will have medicines related to all major diseases.

"We thought of this initiative some 4-5 months back. This will be a boon for the people of the city. Once we open up such centres in all the IMA centres across the nation, people will be highly benefited," said Aggarwal.