The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has come in for commendation from none other than the World Bank which appreciated the work done by the drug authority in creating a state-of-the-art drug testing lab in Mumbai utilizing World Bank fund under the Capacity Building Project. A two-member World Bank team was in Mumbai on September 17 and 18 to take stock of the implementation and impact of the project in India.

"I am very happy to see how the project has helped to create a state-of-the-art lab that became NABL accredited and will develop into a model for India," World Bank team member Andrews Seiter commented after visiting the lab. "This is a model for other states", commented the other member Jagmohan Singh Kang.

During the two-day visit, the World Bank team made a detailed inspection of the food and drug testing lab which has a capacity of testing 6000 drug samples and 1200 food samples. The FDA has spent around Rs 5 crore for upgrading the lab into a model one in the country under the project.

Officials in the Maharashtra FDA said that Maharashtra is the only state in the country which has utilized all the funds made available through the World Bank project. Other states like Karnataka, Gujarat, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Tripura, etc could not fully utilize the fund and has returned the money to the World Bank as the Bank has closed the project on June 30 this year. The project was started by the World Bank to improve the quality and safety of foods and drugs in India, by strengthening the regulatory framework and incorporating components of consumer education and public-private partnerships.

Sources said that only 40 per cent of the total funds allocated by the World Bank could be utilized by the Indian government for various reasons and that too became controversial as there were allegations of corruption in utilizing the funds, especially against the agency HSCC which was instrumental in procuring and distributing equipments to different centres.