Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has blacklisted a Gujarat-based medicine manufacturing company for supplying low-quality saline to the Odisha State Medical Corporation (OSMC) for distribution among the beneficiaries under the Niramaya scheme.
Apart from issuing a show-cause notice, the Corporation has debarred the Aculife Healthcare Private Ltd from participating in any tender floated by it for three years.
The Corporation, however, maintained that these low-quality saline have not been supplied to any government hospital.
Talking to the media, a senior official said the Corporation had floated a tender in 2016-17 and selected Aculife Healthcare Private Ltd for the supply of Compound Sodium Lactate
Intravenous Infusion (Ringer’s lactate solution), iv Dextrose and sodium chloride of 500 ML each for the Niramaya scheme.
However, during the test it was found that seven batches of the saline solutions were of low quality. Though the expiry date of the solutions was 2020, these were found to be less than 500 ML.
“According to the rules, all medicines procured by the Corporation are tested before distribution to the hospitals. After the test, the saline solutions were found to be of low quality. For further confirmation, these solutions were later tested at the National Accreditation Board for Testing & Calibration Laboratories (NABL) and the results were the same. Thereafter, the Corporation followed the rule that if more than two batches of medicines are found to be of low quality, the manufacturing company would be blacklisted,” the official said.
However, there would be no shortage of saline solutions in the state as they are supplied by other medicine companies, the official added.
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