HYDERABAD: BJP State Vice-President NVSS Prabhakar has written to the Central Vigilance Commissioner and the CBI, asking the two agencies to stop procurement of haemoglobin strips by the Telangana State Medical Services Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC).
Inexplicably, the former MLA did not seek a probe, but said in his letters that the procurement, under the National Health Mission’s ‘Anaemia Mukht Bharat’ for anaemia tests for pregnant women and children, was at a higher cost than in Andhra Pr-adesh and thus causing a loss of Rs 2.67 cro-re to the exchequer.
He wrote that the tender for the purchase of 1,10,000 haemoglobin strips by TSMSIDC was not done in a competitive manner and that the work was entrusted to Aspen Diagnostics Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, whose product was Chinese made and the specifications don’t comply with the standards laid out by the Centre.
“Moreover, it is against the spirit of Make in India and bypasses companies which had products manufactured domestically, but weren’t given a chance in the tender process,” Prabhakar wrote.
He wrote that while the AP government had placed the same order with Aspen diagnostics at Rs 13.94 per haemoglobin strip, Telangana is paying Rs 16.59 per strip.