Modi government claims India has enough PPE – personal protective equipment.

But health workers are still reporting shortages.

Companies say supply chains are slow.

We investigated why. 

#Thread

To recap: 

In March, PPE manufacturers were still battling lack of transparency by the government and the sole agency appointed for centralised procurement.

@AarefaJohari reported on the strange case of missing tenders. https://scroll.in/article/956866/investigation-crucial-coronavirus-gear-supply-clouded-by-allegations-of-government-malintention

Not just government procurement, PPE companies could not even start production for private hospitals.

Why?

Because the government had not publicly released PPE specifications.

They were released – guess what – on the day the lockdown began. March 24. https://scroll.in/article/957493/first-coronavirus-safety-gear-was-held-up-by-government-delays-now-it-faces-lockdown-bottlenecks

Lockdown meant workers struggled to come to factories.

But production was delayed for another reason – the government had appointed just one centre for the mandatory testing of PPE samples.

Yes, one centre for the whole of India.

Now, every batch of PPE needs to be tested.

Which means a company has to repeatedly send samples for testing.

After much outcry, the government gradually increased the number of testing centres to eight.

One of them is INMAS – the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences in Delhi.

It comes under the DRDO, India's premier military research organisation.

On April 21, INMAS told companies it could take upto five weeks to give the results of sample tests.

Five weeks.

This was a blow for PPE firms. They can't produce till their samples are cleared.

But what was puzzling is while some samples submitted after April 21 are still awaiting results, 31 have been cleared.

16 of them were tested on the day they were submitted,  @aarefajohari found.

This has upset companies that are still waiting.

"Are they adopting a pick and choose policy?”

DRDO responded to our questions. It said some samples had been tested on priority because they were submitted by a government agency, made in-house or had been imported.

But only three certificates on its site explicitly state this.

DRDO did not respond to further questions.

Read @AarefaJohari's report: https://scroll.in/article/961235/at-defence-lab-testing-coronavirus-safety-gear-5-week-wait-for-some-speedy-clearance-for-others

The story will be updated if and when DRDO responds to our follow up questions.