The Union Ministry of Textile has set out guidelines for the Personal Protective Equipment test centers and manufacturing units. Earlier there have been instances where manufacturers were selling the PPEs to the private hospitals that failed the quality tests at the test centers.
Whereas, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, GOI has already published comprehensive guidelines for PPE in view of COVID-19 and the same were not being followed effectively.
However, Ministry of Textile has now through a notification issued guidelines that may be implemented with immediate effect that will ensure improvement in the quality of PPE Body Coveralls.
The notification clarified that there are only two officially recognized laboratories for conducting tests on Body Coveralls (PPE) in India, South India Textile Research Association (SITRA), Coimbatore and Defence Research & Development Establishment (DRDE), Gwalior.
Guidelines include stringent procedures to be followed by the testing centers as well as manufacturing units, such as, generating separate Unique Certification Code (UCC-COVID-19) for each proto-type test at SITRA/ DRDE, manufacturing of PPE Garment in accordance with material and workmanship as per the tested and certified proto-type, putting up tamper-proof stickers including Name of Manufacturer, SITRA/DRDE Unique Identification Code, Test Standard, Date of Manufacturing and Batch.
-India Legal Bureau