Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices (HMD) along with more than 228 large factories of Faridabad has been asked to shut down its factories ‘voluntarily’ as part of a pollution-control drive undertaken by authorities in the National Capital Region (NCR). HMD alone contributes to over 66 per cent of syringe supplies in India for curative healthcare and immunisation.

Raising his concern, Rajiv Nath, MD, HMD said, “The closure of needles and syringes manufacturing factories will disrupt the supply chain which 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.”

Nath shared that 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.”

In a letter to Arvind Kumar Nautiyal, The Member Secretary, Commission for Air Quality Management, NCR & AA, Nath informed that HMD is manufacturing COVID-19 critical medical devices i.e. syringes for COVID-19 vaccination and are running their operations with PNG of 4.3 MW since 2011. Nath requested Nautiyal to withdraw the order or make an exception looking at the critical nature of running the operation for the COVID-19 vaccination in India.