As Hindustan Syringes' plants face closure, Health Ministry seeks exemption

Haryana Pollution Control board has asked India's largest syringe maker to shut its Faridabad plants. Company denies pollution charges, says it uses piped natural gas

The Union Health Ministry on Saturday took cognizance of the Haryana Pollution Control Board's voluntary closure notice to Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices Ltd (HMD) and has sought relief. The ministry sought an exemption for factories producing essential and critical medicines and devices.

The company operates three factories in Faridabad in Haryana and provides 66 per cent of syringes used in the country. HMD’s factories are among the 228 factories that have been asked to voluntarily shut down as a part of the pollution control drive by the Haryana government.

The health ministry, headed by Mansukh Mandaviya, swung into action as closure of HMD units would severely impact the production of syringes. Availability of syringes is crucial as India looks to ramp up its Covid-19 vaccination drive amid Omicron scare.

“As soon as we learnt about the closure notice we took it up with concerned government authorities. We have requested them to exempt factories manufacturing critical medicines and devices from the directive,” an official said.

HMD’s managing director Rajiv Nath has also asked the government to declare Covid-critical medical devices like syringes as a product of national importance to ensure uninterrupted production.

Nath estimates that the central government would have around two weeks stock of syringes for Covid-19 and believes the disruption would impact the government’s target of vaccinating all adults by December-end. However, he sees a bigger challenge for hospitals and nursing homes that do not keep a large inventory.

“We have a commitment to provide 75 million 0.5 ml syringes to the government each. In some months we are supplying eight months and have diverted our capacity for the domestic market after the government banned exports,” Nath said.

“Most of HMD’s plants run on environmentally friendly piped natural gas (PNG). We have captive PNG-based power generation. We do have standby diesel gensets, but are hardly used since we have PNG that’s far cheaper and pollution free. We are not a polluting industry and one of our plants just got the gold certification for green building for meeting sustainability standards,” he added.