COIMBATORE: After around three months of no progress, the Coimbatore district administration has identified land for constructing the state's first Medical Devices Testing Laboratory at Kavundampalayam.
Revenue department land, spanning around 1.28 acres, has been identified for the project. "A portion of the land (around 50 cents) has been earmarked to construct the Kavundampalayam police station while the rest would be allocated to the drug administration department. The joint committee comprising the district administration and the drug administration department, along with the health officials, visited the location at Jeeva Nagar in Kavundampalayam on Thursday and held a discussion about the possibilities of establishing the laboratory," said sources, adding that the land will be officially handed over to the drug administration department soon.
Testing A and B category medical devices at government-owned laboratories are a part of the Medical Devices Rules, under the Drug and Cosmetics (D&C) Act, which came into force in January 2018. However, the drug administration department in Tamil Nadu has not performed any tests on medical devices due to the lack of a specialised laboratory in the state.
Based on a request from the state government, the central government approved the plan to establish a well-equipped NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) accredited laboratory for testing medical devices, including in-vitro diagnostics, at Coimbatore. In a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the central and state governments under the Strengthening of State Drug Regulatory System scheme, Rs 29.67 crore was allocated for the project in mid-2024-25, in a fund sharing ratio of 60:40 by the centre and the state, respectively. Even though it was announced in December 2024, there was no progress. Recently, Health Minister Ma Subramanian announced the project during the discussion on demands for grants in the Assembly.
On April 22, a TNIE report highlighted that the delay in allocating land had affected the progress of setting up the lab. District Collector Pavankumar G Giriyappanavar had also assured that the land identification process will be wrapped up at the earliest.