Landslides halt train services in Assam hill section
Guwahati, June 15: Train services to Assam's Barak Valley, Mizoram and Tripura remained cut off on Friday due to fresh landslides in the Lumding-Badarpur hill section of Assam even as the Northeast Frontier Railway cancelled several trains.
NF Railway Chief Public Relation Officer P.J. Sharma said while the railway workers had completed restoration work at five locations where landslides had taken place, fresh landslide took place on Friday leading to suspension and cancellation of several trains that run through the hill section.
Due to fresh incident of heavy landslides between Bandarkhal and Damchara stations, about 36 km ahead of Badarpur, train traffic continued to remain suspended in the Lumding-Badarpur section.
"Work is in progress in the affected locations. Complete restoration is likely to take two to three days. There are also land slips in several places at Dharmanagar area," Sharma said.
With the trains suspended in the hill section, the Barak valley districts, Mizoram and Tripura remained cut off from Assam and other parts of the country by rail.
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'Low-quality' catheters supplied to West Bengal govt hospitals at high price, probe ordered
Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal health department has launched a probe into the supplies of allegedly low-quality and locally made catheters at a high price to several government hospitals, posing a risk to the lives of patients undergoing treatment in these facilities, officials said.
Such central venous catheters (CVCs) were allegedly supplied to at least five medical colleges and hospitals in the state, defying allocation of international standard-compliant CVCs, they said.
The distribution company, which has been accused of supplying these catheters to government hospitals, admitted to the fault but placed the blame on its employees.
"We started checking stocks some time back and found these locally made CVCs in my hospital store. These catheters are of low quality as compared to those allocated by the state. We have informed the state health department," a senior official of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital told PTI.
Low-quality catheters were also found in the stores of other hospitals, which indicates "possible involvement of insiders in the scam", a health department official said.
The low-quality CVCs were supplied by a distributor in the Hatibagan area in the northern part of Kolkata for the last three to four months, he said.
"Such kinds of local CVCs are priced around Rs 1,500 but the distributor took Rs 4,177 for each device," the official said.
A CVC is a thin and flexible tube that is inserted into a vein to allow for the administration of fluids, blood, and other treatment. It's also clinically called a central line catheter.
"An initial probe revealed that the distribution company Prakash Surgical had supplied the low-quality and locally manufactured catheters to several government hospitals instead of the CVCs of the government-designated international company.
"All the units will be tested and a proper investigation is on to find out who benefited from these supplies," the health department official said.
The distribution company blamed its employees for the supply of inferior quality catheters.
"I was sick for a few months. Some employees of the organisation made this mistake. We are taking back all those units that have gone to the hospitals. It's all about misunderstanding," an official of the distribution company told PTI.
According to another state health department official, a complaint was lodged with the police in this connection.
Asked about how many patients were affected by the usage of such low-quality CVCs, the official said, "The probe would also try to find that out".
According to sources in the health department, some of the staff of the hospitals' equipment receiving departments and some local officials of international organisations might be involved in the alleged irregularities.
