Crores spent, drugs testing lab at Baddi still non-functional
Ambika Sharma
Solan, July 7
Years after spending crores on its construction and even after it was inaugurated by the Chief Minister, the state government could not notify a drugs testing lab at Baddi, rendering it non-functional.
A sum of Rs 32 crore was spent on setting up this lab sanctioned in 2017. It was inaugurated by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on March 10. However, in the absence of the requisite notification, it was yet to be made functional.
“The state government has, however, been coughing up a monthly electricity bill of nearly Rs 1 lakh in keeping the sophisticated equipment functional besides paying salary to two deputy analysts sitting idle for over two years,” informed an official in the Drugs Control Administration.
He added that the issue has been taken up with the Central government and would be resolved soon.
Despite housing Asia’s biggest pharmaceutical hub in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial belt, the state lacks a fully equipped drug-testing laboratory.
The need to set up such a lab assumes significance as the drug samples from the state’s drug firms repeatedly fail quality parameters. As many as 23 drug samples from Baddi, Barotiwala, Kala Amb, Paonta Sahib, Solan, etc., were declared substandard on June 21 by the national drugs regulator.
The need to enhance infrastructure facilities is the need of the hour with a multi-crore bulk drug park being set up in Una district.
“With the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation imposing stringent conditions such as bio-equivalence and stability data for every product, absence of such a lab forces the industry to outsource such tests to private labs. The creation of a stability chamber and related facilities is a costly affair for small manufacturers,” said a pharmaceutical manufacturer.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had provided Rs 30 crore to the state Health Department in 2017 to set up a new lab as part of the 12th Five-Year Plan.
