The Directorate of Vigilance of the Delhi government has urged the Central government for a thorough investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter of supply of suspected spurious drugs to city government hospitals.

In a letter to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, the Directorate of Vigilance on Thursday said, “Assigning the matter of reported supply of not of standard quality drugs to hospitals of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) to CBI.”

“I am further directed to state that any action for supplying such kind of ‘not of standard quality’ drugs should not be confined to Central Procurement Agency (CPA) and there is a need to investigate the entire supply chain viz role of suppliers who procured from the manufacturers and provided supply to the end users ie hospitals (patients). Besides, there is a need to lift the corporate veil to understand the gravity and motives of supplying not of standard quality drugs,” read the letter.

It further said, “In this context, it is not out of place to mention that the matter of Mohalla Clinics was already entrusted to the CBI and preliminary enquiry (PE) was also registered dated February 13, 2018. It needs to be investigated whether the same drugs which have been procured by CPA are also being distributed to the patients through Mohalla Clinics or not.”

It may be mentioned that Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena recommended a CBI inquiry over the matter last week.

Directing the Chief Secretary for action, the LG had said, “These drugs procured by spending huge budgetary resources are a grave threat to public health and safety and have the potential of endangering lives of people. Prima facie, apart from CPA-Delhi Health Services (DHS), GNCTD there are suppliers, manufacturers situated in other states and Drug Controllers in those states associated in this whole exercise.”

The move came after the Drug Controller under Health Department of Delhi, on the basis of complaints regarding “sub-standard” medicines being supplied in Delhi government hospitals, randomly collected the drug samples from IHBAS, Lok Nayak and Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospitals and sent them to the approved government and private labs for testing,

Out of 43 samples that were sent to government labs, three samples failed the test as 12 reports are still pending. Further, out of another 43 samples sent to private labs, five samples failed, as per the communiqué issued by the LG office.