NEW DELHI - The Indian government is mulling a "free-medicine-to-all" scheme through various public hospitals and health facilities across the country to reduce poverty and indebtedness mainly in rural areas, local media reported Tuesday.

The strategy aims to facilitate state governments to set up autonomous medical supplies corporation to supply free and generic essential medicines to patients who seek healthcare in government hospitals and health facilities, the Times of India newspaper reported.

This sort of scheme is currently being followed in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu where the bulk procurement of drugs by medical supply corporation from manufacturers via transparent bidding process substantially reduces the cost of medicines.

The southern state of Kerala has already adopted the Tamil Nadu model and the eastern state of Bihar and the western state of Rajasthan are in the process of implementing the scheme.