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Updated December 13th, 2021 at 11:54 IST

India's biggest syringe manufacturer seeks exemption after Haryana govt shuts all plants

India's largest syringe and needle manufacturer Hindustan Syringes & Medical devices (HMD) wrote to PM Modi requesting to withdraw production suspension order

Hindustan Syringes
IMAGE: Hindustan Syringes | Image:self
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In a significant development, India's largest syringe and needle manufacturer Hindustan Syringes & Medical devices (HMD) MD Rajiv Nath on Sunday, wrote to PM Modi requesting to withdraw the production suspension order. HMD was ordered to shut off all its plants by the Haryana Pollution Control Board usage of diesel-generator sets, triggering air pollution concerns. HMD produces 60% of 80 lakh syringes required in India, triggering a shortage alarm.

HMD shut down over air pollution norms

In his letter to PM Modi, Nath writes, "The closure of needles and syringes manufacturing factories will create disruption in the supply chain. This may impact healthcare delivery across the country in general and the COVID-19 vaccination programme in particular, resulting in major shortage and other related issues." He also pointed out that the plant runs its operation via its captive 4.3 MW PNG generation plant since 2011 which are connected to DG sets.

He added that the DG sets run on auto-synchronisation mode in case of power-tripping or fluctuation DG sets and are stopped manually. He stated that DG sets ran only for few minutes on auto synchronisation mode as per log and the records were not tampered with. He urged the Centre to exempt his units to function under the National Disaster Management Act. HMD was one of the 228 factories in the region which was shut by HPCB over usage of DG sets and to improve air quality.

Lashing out at the Haryana government's rash decision, ex-Union Minister Abhishek Manu Singhvi tweeted, "A1 example of minimum government maximum governance. Haryana asks Hindustan Syringes plants to be shut down allegedly because their factory is running on diesel Gensets, which is allegedly not even true. The factory provides 2/3rd of India's syringe requirements. Wah Khattar Ji Wah!".

The move has raised concerns of slowing down India's rapidly expanding vaccination drive against COVID-19. Since January 16, when India started inoculating its citizens in a phased manner, the nation has administered 133,30,59,264 doses of which 51,57,76,518 have received both doses. India's vaccine basket has now expanded to six jabs -  Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik V, Moderna vaccine, J&J's Janssen vaccine and Zydus Cadila's ZyCOV-D with Gennova's mRNA vaccine, Biological E's Corbevax, Covaxin's nasal vaccine and Novovax's Covovax in the pipeline.

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Published December 13th, 2021 at 11:54 IST

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