Foundation day celebrated

The National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research (NIPER) celebrated its Foundation Day today.

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Prof Dulal Panda, Director of the institute, presented the annual report highlighting various achievements in the area of education and research.

Non-teaching staff boycott event

Members of the NIPER Staff Welfare Association boycotted the celebrations in protest against NIPER Director Prof Dulal Panda.

Non-teaching staff members complained that the Director had not released their financial benefits approved under the Personal Promotion Scheme for the past four years.

“He stopped the benefits on the pretext of audit objections the day he took over in July 2021. This even as the Audit Committee had nowhere proposed to stop the benefits. On the other hand, many administrative lapses that were objected to have not been stopped,” claimed the association in a statement.

Chief guest Dr Vinod Kumar Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, delivered the foundation day address on “India’s Covid-19 vaccine research and vaccination journey”. He gave details about the development path of all indigenous vaccines. He said for any workable strategy, there were two domains — excellence and value. “We should work on both these domains,” he added. Dr Paul also elaborated on India’s 100-day mission to roll out vaccines in case there is a pandemic in future.

Guest of honour Dr Rajeev Singh Raghuvanshi, Drugs Controller General of India, said the Indian pharmacy business target was projected to be 130 billion US dollars by the year 2030.

Several competitions were organised during the celebrations, including general science quiz. The winners were awarded prizes.