HLL traces a firm from Singapore for sending substandard Chinese KN95 masks to India: Health Ministry

A central procurement agency i.e. HLL Lifecare Limited was finalized in February, 2020 to expedite emergency procurement of essential medical items during the COVID-19 pandemic. “HLL assisted the Central Procurement Department in the preparation of bidding documents as well as in bidding, evaluation and award of contracts. It also helped in managing the supply chain to distribute the items as per the needs of the states,” the first official said.

Meanwhile, a World Bank report also appreciated that HLL had hired inspection agencies to conduct pre-dispatch inspections at construction sites. Random samples from different batches for quality evaluation independently by competent laboratories like DRDO, Defense Research Development Establishment (DRDE), Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE), Ordnance Factory Board’s Labs, South India Textile Research Association (SITRA) were collected. ,

India did not compromise on the quality of essential commodities in the largest procurement exercise undertaken by the Government of India during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing a World Bank report documenting challenges, innovations and lessons in procuring essential medical items .

“Initially, the rejections were as high as 20-30 per cent, mostly due to poor seam penetration of PPE, but later the quality of the product improved significantly. SITRA also developed a Blood Penetration Resistance Tester for PPE and licensed a company to produce this device and make it available to industry to help with internal quality control,” the report said.

“We did centralized procurement through HLL to expedite emergency procurement. The Health Ministry constituted an expert panel to develop specifications for overalls, goggles and N95 masks. In addition, HLL hired an inspection agency to conduct pre-dispatch inspections at construction sites. In one such case, a Singapore-based company tried to send millions of substandard Chinese KN95 masks to India in 2021 by forging third party inspection certificates. This was detected by HLL’s dispatch inspection team and encashed the supplier’s bank guarantee of $9.75 million. The money is lying in a separate account at the Embassy of Singapore and the matter is under consideration.”

India was jointly funded by the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for a $1.5 billion project to strengthen COVID-19 emergency response and health systems during the pandemic.

The official said, “By May 2021, a sufficient number of manufacturers for PPE and N95 masks started producing quality products and the health ministry worked with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to set standards. ”

The World Bank has said in its report that India has reduced the price of n95 masks. from 250 50, PPE Kits from 700 150, RT-PCR test kit from 1200 70 and basic ICU ventilators. developed at less than 2 lakhs which were imported earlier at a cost of 10 lakh each.

“The report recognizes and appreciates the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by us. We faced many challenges such as limited domestic production of medical supplies, inadequate market intelligence, wide variation in the intensity of the pandemic across states, price and supply constraints due to rising demand across the globe, India managed the pandemic well did,” said the second officer.

The World Bank report points to 200 million substandard, dirty and secondhand medical nitrile gloves purchased by the USA from a Thailand-based company during the pandemic.

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