VIJAYAWADA: Refuting the allegations levelled by the former employees of the Andhra Pradesh Medtech Zone Limited (AMTZ), Visakhapatnam that the ambitious project of the government is marred in irregularities, health minister Kamineni Srinivas on Tuesday said that the project was in the initial stage and its cost was not escalated, adding that some of the ousted employees were trying to malign the government over the issue.
At a media meet here, he made it clear that the project works were not awarded to the Andhra Pradesh Industrial and Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) as being rumoured.
“The AMTZ will be India’s first manufacturing hub for medical devices and it needs technical and scientific expertise to ground the project for which the APIIC does not have the technical know-how. Hence, the government has opted to rely on the private companies,” he said.
The minister said that the government was committed to transforming the AMTZ for manufacturing medical equipment, but some persons were making baseless allegations on awarding the works and quoting the prices.
Reiterating the same, AMTZ CEO Jitendra Sharma said that former vice-president of the company Judish Raj had created fake email IDs and sent several hundred mails to tarnish the image of the AMTZ, creating hurdles for the mega project which is coming up in 270 acres in Visakhapatnam, housing 200 independent manufacturing units.
“Proposals have been made to set up of component testing centre, electromagnetic interference laboratory, medical-grade low vacuum molding, injection molding centres, 3D designing and printing for medical grade products sterilisation, toxicity testing center among others,” he said.