National Weights and Measures without a lab for three months

The laboratory at the largest National Weights and Measures Research Institute has been closed for more than three months after the employees had fallen ill by breathing in a poisonous gas.

The employees said the Weights and Measures Research Institute comprising 60 laboratories at Pitipana in Homagama was set up in 2015 and that the project costing Rs. 2 billion was a failure. They said the relevant authorities had not yet paid any attention to it. They pointed out that the air inside the laboratories had been polluted by a chemical causing cancer, mixed with excessive carbon dioxide

Meanwhile Weights and Measures Officers and the employees had on September 21, 2016 informed that they were suffering from lung ailments, sore throat and eye ailments. They pointed out that the air inside the laboratories had been polluted by a chemical causing cancer, mixed with excessive carbon dioxide. They had requested for an insurance cover for medical consultation and laboratory test to find out any possible affect of the cancerous chemical.

However, Weights and Measures and Standards Department Director K. Premasiri Kumara who admitted that the laboratory had been closed due to a chemical leak that he was awaiting a report on it. He said senior officials of the ministry had focused attention on the issue.