Square Foot, part of the Gaurav Saraf Group in Bangalore, has teamed-up with Tarkett, a 1.5-billion Euro French company to promote its range of pharmaceutical floorings in India which are superior and economical in the long run.

According to cGMP guidelines, flooring in pharmaceutical companies should be seamless, dust free and not allow bacteria and fungi to grow on it.

Tarkett has a range of homogenous resilient flooring which is used by pharma sector. The products are seam welded together to give a seamless surface and anti static. It is highly chemical, bacteria and fungi resistance. The product has been tested for spillage of chemicals for two minutes, an hour and 24 hour spillage. The flooring also comes with its own coving and capping systems. The products are manufactured according to ISO: 9001 quality control system and ISO: 14001 environmentally friendly systems.

According to the company sources, Tarkett also makes a special range of conductive resilient for critical areas where the manufacturing area has machines on it which produce static electricity. These special conductive floors are carbon backed from manufacturing and permanently conductive products. The electrical resistance they offer is 10^6 ohms.

In India, Tarkett recently launched Wallgard which is a 1.3mm resilient wall covering, seam welded together to give a seamless surface. Its PU shield top prevents growth of bacteria or fungi and is fully washable. It is a permanent product which is also clean room tested according to ASTM standards with Class A rating.

Floorings from Tarkett have been used in India for the last six years. Some of the customers include AstraZeneca India, Biocon, Biological Evans, Shantha Biotechnics, Zydus Cadila, Claris Lifesciences, Dr Reddys Laboratory, Millipore, Strides Arcolab, etc. Worldwide Tarkett's clients are Roche, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Glaxo, Wellcome, Braco and Pharmacia Upjohn amongst others. All the companies where Tarkett flooring has been installed has been audited according to cGMP standards and meet USFDA norms or EU norms, stated company sources.

Traditional floorings used in pharmaceutical companies are kota stone or hard flooring which attracts dirt and germs. Even Epoxy floors used in critical areas is also expensive to maintain.

In India, Square Foot has already installed more then half a million square feet in the last two years for pharmaceutical units and is targeting more than 2 million square feet in 2006.