Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday hit out at companies selling Covid-19 testing kits imported from China for trying to make profits amid India’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Gandhi’s reaction came after reports that the companies were selling kits to the Indian Council of Medical Research at inflated prices.
“Even when the entire country is fighting the Covid-19 disaster, some people do not miss out on making unfair profits,” he tweeted in Hindi. “Shame, disgust at this corrupt mentality.”
“We demand from the PM [prime minister that strict action should be taken against these profiteers soon. The country will never forgive them.”
The profiteering by the companies came to light during a legal battle between the distributors and importers of testing kits in the Delhi High Court on Friday. Importer Matrix Labs had bought the testing kits from China for Rs 245 per piece but the distributors, Real Metabolics and Aark Pharmaceuticals, sold the same kits to the government for Rs 600 per unit, a markup of over 140%. The court, then, capped the price of the testing kits at Rs 400 per unit.
In another tweet, Gandhi called out the companies for trying to profit from the suffering of Indian citizens. “That any human being would try and profiteer from the immeasurable suffering of millions of his brothers and sisters, is beyond belief and comprehension,” he said. “This scam is an insult to every Indian.”
On Sunday, Gandhi had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “act fast and clear the bottleneck” that was stopping India from scaling up its coronavirus testing.
Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, meanwhile, sought clarification from the government on the price of the kits. “The recent Delhi High Court judgement has raised a pertinent question - Why was ICMR purchasing antibody test kits for Rs 600 per piece,which was imported for Rs 245?” he wrote on Twitter. “In the midst of a pandemic, no one should profit at the expense of the poor. Hope the government clarifies this.”
On Monday, ICMR advised the states to stop using the Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics kits from China due to inaccurate results. The government, meanwhile, clarified that India has not paid the Chinese firms that provided faulty rapid testing kits.
India has reported 28,380 coronavirus cases and 886 deaths so far, according to the health ministry’s Monday evening update.
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