‘An opaque test kit procurement process riddled with discrepancies'

NEW DELHI: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) tenders and documents, recently reviewed by Millennium Post have now shown that Humasis, a South Korean company that had signed an MOU to supply India with 5 lakh COVID-19 testing kits, has been rejected by the ICMR for a tender to supply Antibody test kits. Interestingly, this is not the only curious discrepancy that has been found in the process of procuring testing kits.

On April 20, the Indian Embassy in South Korea had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Humasis to procure around 5 lakh test kits. Government officials in India had confirmed this but when Humasis had applied for an ICMR tender to supply Rapid Antibody test kits to India, it was put on a list of 88 companies rejected for the tender.

With already short supply of test kits in the country and a failed attempt to bring Rapid Antibody test kits from two companies in China, the procurement process is riddled with opacity and confusion. For instance, one of the first few Indian labs to have its RT-PCR kits validated by the ICMR was rejected for a tender to supply these same kits and then again put back on a revised list of approved RTPCR test kits.

Significantly, Altona Diagnostics Pvt Ltd was one of the first Indian manufacturers to have its RT-PCR kits validated by ICMR'S National Institute of Virology sometime in March. In the second week of April, however, when the ICMR issued an Expression of Interest for supplying around 45 lakh RT-PCR kits, Altona's proposal was rejected.

According to documents reviewed by Millennium Post, Altona Diagnostics was put on a list of 65 firms rejected for the tender. Curiously however, on May 1, the ICMR put out a list of firms and their test kits that had been approved by its Centres of Excellence. This list cited Altona Diagnostics' RT-PCR kits at the top.

Moreover, several of the companies that were rejected by the ICMR for its tenders have found to be having the appropriate certifications and documentation. Industry insiders have called ICMR'S procurement process opaque and pointed out that officials are often not available for communication with respect to queries on the tender.

“Some tenders are put on the website, some taken off and then suddenly the website is revamped, and all the tender documents are removed from the website,” some of them said, adding that several manufacturers in Europe with better technology are now choosing not to participate in tenders here in light of these discrepancies.