The health department has ordered an inquiry into the purchase of Enzyme linked Immunosorbent Assay (ElISA) kits at price higher than the prevailing market rate by the office of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Dehradun.
ElISA kit is used to conduct confirmatory test of dengue. In a disturbing revelation it was learnt that the CMO office of Dehradun had purchased ElISA kits manufactured by the same company from two different suppliers at different rates. Shockingly, the office purchased these kits at higher price than the prevailing market price.
The Director General (DG) health services, Dr Kusum Narriyal said that the issue is really serious and it is a matter of investigation as to how kit of a company was purchased at two different rates. She said that strict action would be initiated against those indicted in the inquiry.
The CMO office of Dehradun invited tenders for purchase of ElISA test kits when the disease hit the State capital in the month of July
this year. It has come to know that the selected firm supplied these kits at a rate of
Rs 19,000 per piece. The firm supplied kit of Panbio diagnostic manufactured by Standard diagnostic Inc, a South Korean company.
Interestingly the department purchased same kit from another supplier at a rate of Rs 17,000 per kit when the demand increased due to sudden outburst in number of dengue cases and the selected firm was not able to provide requisite numbers.
It is learnt that the CMO office showed unnecessary haste in clearing the tender and overlooked that fact that the market price of these kits is much less. One ElISA kit can be used to test 91 samples and the district health department has so far conducted 31,338 ElISA tests on suspected samples of dengue this year.
Though the department is not revealing the exact number of kits it purchased, a rough calculation reveals that it has used more than 345 kits this season.
The health department officials admit that the incidence is a clear case of unnecessary favoritism. “It is a norm that the tender purchase should be at least 22 percent less than the prevailing market price but here these kits were purchased at prices which were higher by at least 20 percent than the market rate. A through inquiry should be conducted on all the purchases made by the CMO office of Dehradun in last two years,’’ said one such official.