Khulna City Corporation (KCC) has cancelled a supplier's work order and told it to take back a mosquito larvicide that failed its first quality test. KCC's chief waste management officer, Md Anisur Rahman, informed the contractor, M R Enterprise, by letter on Tuesday, 13 October.
According to Samakal's Khulna report, M R Enterprise delivered 2,000 litres of larvicide worth about Tk 56 lakh on 8 September. On 12 September a KCC committee took random samples and ran a field test in front of entomologists. Within 48 hours of application not even 12 percent of the larvae had died, a result the letter calls unsatisfactory. The order was cancelled a month after Samakal reported the failed test on 14 September.
The supplier's proprietor, Dr Md Mahbubur Rahman Gazi, says the tender conditions did not include such a test and that KCC's method was flawed. His firm had applied for a fresh test, he said, and talks were under way when the order was cancelled, so it will now go to court.
Anisur Rahman says the tender required the product to pass the field test before any chemical analysis, and it failed at the first stage. Mosquito sprays have been tested this way several times a year for decades, he said, and this test followed the rules in front of entomologists and chemists. KCC administrator Nazrul Islam Manju said: "There is no room to accept adulterated medicine. We cannot play games with people's lives."
With stocks running low, KCC's management committee decided on Tuesday afternoon to buy 1,000 litres for now by direct purchase from Narayanganj Dockyard and Engineering Works Ltd, which the navy runs. The new product costs Tk 4,400 a litre against Tk 2,800 for the larvicide in use now, and it will also be tested before it is accepted. The administrator said the Barishal and Mymensingh city corporations use it, and the price will be discussed again.
Separately, KCC tested a new adulticide, a spray for flying mosquitoes, at its garage at about 3:30pm on Tuesday in front of entomologists, pesticide experts, journalists and civic leaders, with results due on Wednesday. In the dengue season an effective larvicide is the city's first line against Aedes breeding.
Photo: Challiyan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: samakal
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