Needles & syringes major HMD in NCR allowed to restart production

Chennai, Dec 13 (IANS) The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in the National Capital Region (NCR) and Adjoining Areas have allowed needles and syringes major Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices Ltd (HMD) to restart production, said a top company official.

"Today (Monday) we start full operations on getting the formal letter," HMD Managing Director Rajiv Nath told IANS.

In a letter to the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB), the CAQM said HMD units are allowed to resume their operations.

The CAQM has also permitted all other industrial units not powered by piped natural gas (PNG) or cleaner fuels to run for eight hours a day from Monday to Friday. The units cannot operate on Saturdays and Sundays.

Recently the CAQM had directed HMD and other industrial units in Faridabad to shutdown their units to control emissions in the NCR.

Subsequently Nath represented to the government pointing out the critical nature of the product made by the company -- needles and syringes -- and factory closure would affect not only Covid-19 vaccination programme but also healthcare delivery in general across the nation.

The company produces about 1.5 crore needles and 80 lakh syringes daily.

Appreciating the quick decision and the rational approach of CAQM, Nath said the permission to restart the factories is a major reprieve.

"We have to exercise restraint now till hopefully another order comes to allow use of diesel gensets set as for hospitals," he said.

Nath also hoped HMD would be allowed to use diesel gensets in very rare circumstances that would ensure optimal plant operational efficiencies.

He said as cost of change overs and machine restarts in a highly automated process leads to not only higher wastages, rejections and downtimes but with that comes a higher risk of patient safety of some manufacturing defects that should usually be rejected going to the market.

According to him, the per unit cost of power from diesel gensets is Rs 24 while that of the grid power is Rs 9 and PNG is Rs 13.90.

"No one will want to run his plants on expensive diesel gensets even if they meet the emission norms with appropriate chimney heights," Nath said.

He also hoped the Haryana government improves its operational efficiency and cost effectiveness of delivery of power as is being done in Maharashtra, Gujarat and even Madhya Pradesh.

"Like power is made available to farmers on priority during sowing season so should regular uninterrupted high quality power be made available to Delhi NCR region from October to February so the heavily industrialised zone need not run on backup captive power generation," he added.