Police officers sanitise their hands while on duty in Vadodara on Tuesday. (Photo: Bhupendra Rana)
Days after 13 samples of hand sanitisers from a Narmada-based pharmaceutical company failed the quality test conducted by the Food and Drugs Control Administration (FDCA), Gujarat Police has issued a circular to its departments to withdraw or discard the hand sanitisers —Collage-67 — that may have been distributed to the personnel as part of the Covid-19 safety measures.
A letter from Komal Vyas, Deputy Superintendent of Police from the State Control Room, enlists 13 batch numbers of the sanitisers procured by the Gujarat Medical Service Corporation Ltd. (GMSCL), directing all police departments to immediately withdraw any samples in circulation.
“As per a letter from GMSCL, the samples of 13 batches of Collage-67 500ml hand sanitisers by Nirav Healthcare Company have failed the quality test and are concluded to be inefficient. Therefore, if any stock of the above-mentioned hand sanitizer is available in the department, it should not be used. Please also furnish details of the stock (from the same company) belonging to batch numbers other than the ones mentioned above, if available with the department,” the letter states.
The letter has been marked to all Commissioners of Police, Superintendents of Police, Range Inspector Generals, Railway Police and Rapid Action Force. According to officials, the government agency GMSCL had procured more than one lakh bottles of the hand sanitisers from the company, which is based in Rajpipla.
The samples of 13 batches of the sanitisers were sent for random checking in a suo motu exercise by the FDCA in May this year.
The reports which arrived last week concluded that 13 samples had failed. Most of the bottles were distributed to security personnel across the state, officials said.
In Vadodara, Commissioner of Police Anupamsinh Gahlaut said that the department had received about 1,500 bottles of the hand sanitiser in question and most of it was already distributed and used.”We have checked and we don’t have much of the stock remaining. We had received 1,500 bottles in April. It was distributed during the lockdown and most of them have already been used. If any stock is available, we will withdraw it,” Gahlaut said.