PM Modi should intervene to take “strict action” against the profiteers, Rahul Gandhi demanded.
NEW DELHI — After reports of profiteering in rapid test kits to detect COVID-19 emerged, Congress leaders have voiced their concerns with Congress MP and former party president Rahul Gandhi being the latest one.
Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter where he shared a news article that claimed the kits sold to ICMR were at a profit of 145 per cent and demanded: “Even when the entire country is fighting the #Covid19 disaster, some people do not miss out on making unfair profits. Shame, disgust at this corrupt mentality.”
He also demanded that PM Modi intervene to take “strict action” against the profiteers. “The country will never forgive them,” he added.
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.
Earlier, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel too demanded a clarification from the government. Patel also took to Twitter to allege: “The recent Delhi HC judgement has raised a pertinent question – Why was ICMR purchasing antibody test kits for Rs 600 per piece, which was imported for Rs 245?”
— IANS
