BHUBANESWAR: As the ongoing investigation pins down Eastern India Pharmaceutical Laboratory for the liquor deaths, the drug control administration finds itself in an unenviable situation. While on the one hand, it is facing flak for inadequate surveillance and enforcement, on the other, it has completely been sidelined in the probe process.
On Saturday when drug control officials wanted to carry out investigation in the pharma lab’s Rasulgarh factory, the Excise wing asked them to seek permission from police. After submitting a requisition to the police, the drug officials managed to go in but found that just one of the rooms at the factory was open. When they asked for access to other rooms, they were politely declined on grounds of non-availability of keys and other such alibis, sources said. Sources said the Health Department officials could not have access to key records and documents. Does the Excise wing have anything to hide? The authorities had, in fact, chosen not to inform the police on the first day of liquor deaths when the lab was sealed by them.
Interestingly, the drug inspectors are not even intimated when raids are being carried out to detect the spurious medicinal formulations as a result of which they have no clue about what is going on. Sources said, the Health Department has asked all Collectors to inform the local drug inspectors and seek their presence when seizures are being made.