Covid-19 diagnostic test makers want export ban lifted as demand for kits from Indian states slow down

The government had banned the export of these testing kits to cater to local demand.

ICMR has validated the RT-PCR test kits made by 40 domestic and multinational companies for local supply. However, as India’s Covid-19 case load rises every day, companies are reporting that state governments and ICMR have halted procurement of test kits.

“We are stuck with a huge inventory of raw materials/finished products and could suffer huge losses if this inventory of raw material/finished kits is not liquidated in time,” Shesheer Kumar, director of Huwel Lifesciences, a Hyderabad-based maker of RT-PCR kits, told ET.

The company cut production to 50,000 test kits a week from 300,000 a week. Huwel and other Indian companies wrote to the Director General of Foreign Trade to allow them to export excess kits to countries including Bangladesh and Nepal, which have no access to them.