NEW DELHI: Congress on Monday demanded that all the documents of procurement of rapid test kits should be made public, after a trial in Delhi High Court revealed massive profiteering and over-pricing by a firm in the COVID-19 test kits sold to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The legal dispute that came to light in the court unearthed that the same company supplied kits to Tamil Nadu govt at Rs 400 per kit but to ICMR the rate was at Rs 600. Congress leader Manish Tewari said : “There is an anarchy going on imports of testing kits and government should tell what action have been taken by them.”
The said case is of arbitrage in which a company procured testing kits at Rs 245 a kit and supplied 5 lakh kits to ICMR and both the companies involved in the supply profited more than 18 crores, it was said.
When the court reprimanded the firm they agreed to supply it at the rate of Rs 400 per kit. Tewari said that it’s a serious matter that the companies are in profit making and government is not keeping any check and so there is a huge discrepancy. The government should make the papers public as it has centralised procurement of the kits.
Party leader Rahul Gandhi also said, “That any human being would try & profiteer from the immeasurable suffering of millions of his brothers & sisters, is beyond belief & comprehension. This scam is an insult to every Indian. I urge the PM to act swiftly to bring the corrupt to justice.”
