Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh has alleged that the State Government is playing with the lives of people by procuring ‘substandard’ drugs and has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard.
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Madhya Pradesh on Saturday for the Simhastha Kumbh Mela on May 14, the Congress general secretary alleged on Thursday that the Madhya Pradesh State Government was purchasing sub-standard or spurious drugs worth crores of rupees for distribution in the hospitals.
"Ill-equipped and mismanaged hospitals, use of spurious and substandard drugs sans essential tests, leniency in tender conditions to favour the pet supplier companies, flagrant violation of WHO guidelines are some of the open wounds on the body of system," Singh claimed in a letter addressed to Modi, released to media here on Wednesday.
The senior Congress leader alleged in the letter written to the Prime Minister that there was a "nexus between the higher officials and supplier companies" in Madhya Pradesh.
The MP government's Drug Policy, 2009, provides that quality inspection of drugs is to be done by the accredited laboratories with the assistance of a selected external agency, Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation (TNMSC) every year, but why TNMSC was chosen is a mystery, Singh said.
"For quality control of drugs the sample of each batch of medicine supplied by the firms has to be necessarily sent to the selected accredited lab within three days of receipts of medicine a matter has come to light where drugs were procured and were used sans the tests from 2010-11 to November 2013," the letter alleged.
The office of Principal Accountant General (General and Social Sector) found that drugs worth Rs 28.72 crore were used without getting them tested at accredited labs, Singh said.