State MSME dept to launch sanitisers in open market

Kolkata: The state MSME department is set to launch sanitisers in the open market to help people get them at an affordable rate.

The demand for sanitisers has gone up manifold across the country and this has resulted in a gap between demand and supply. There have been complaints that a section of businessmen are charging heavily for the sanitisers.

"We have already floated tender for scaling up production of sanitisers so that we can launch it in the open market. The rates have also been more or less finalised. We will be circulating it everywhere so that people can purchase the same at a reasonable rate," said a senior official of the MSME department.

At present, the supply of sanitiser to the state Health department has exceeded 50,000 litres out of total order of around 91,000 litres. West Bengal Small Industries Development Corporation (WBSIDC) is supplying the same after sourcing it from the MSMEs in the state.

"We have already issued more than 35 new drug licence for manufacturing sanitisers to different MSMEs during this time and there are several applications that are in the process of getting approved. The process for clearance has been simplified and general managers of our department posted in different districts are helping us so that more and more units come into the fray to meet the demand," the official added.

The state MSME department at present is trying to coordinate the supply of personal protective kits (PPE), sanitiser, mask etcetera to Health department and other places where it is required. HLL of the Union government was given the order to supply 5 lakh PPE kits out of which it could supply only 10,000 kits.

The state government has placed supply order of 6 lakh PPE kits to Tantuja which then roped in many MSMEs of the state and helped them to manufacture these in the state itself. Out of 6 lakh kits order (roughly Rs 42 crore), more than 3 lakh have been supplied, all sourced from MSMEs of Bengal. These firms were handheld so that they could supply these kits which they were doing for the first time.

Apart from this, Bangashree is supplying masks and all these are being sourced from small units. It has an order of supplying more than 8.5 lakh masks (Rs 3 crore) out of which 6.5 lakhs have already been supplied. MSME units are also being encouraged and helped to manufacture cloth made reusable masks which are recommended at present.