mid-day impact: Government puts multi-crore proposal for DNA testing kit on hold

The Rapid DNA Analysis machinemidday impact gtgtThe State Forensic Science Laboratorys FSL most eagerly awaited procurement the Rapid DNA Analysis system has been put on hold by the state government at least for the time being A highlevel meeting to discuss procurement was held on Saturday chaired by Additional Chief Secretary Home S K Shrivastava Principal Secretary Special Rajnish Seth Director General Legal and Technical S P Yadav Acting Director FSL Dr K Y Kulkarni and other members from the State Purchase CommitteeHighly placed sources attached to the Mantralaya informed this paper that the state government had sanctioned Rs 6 crore in the last budget for the procurement of machines and equipment for the State FSL All procurements above Rs 10 lakh as per set norms have to be done by the purchase committee the official saidNo permissionHe added The department had placed an order for Headspace Gas Chromatography 2 machines R50 lakh each High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography HPTLC 1 machine for R40 lakh and Rapid DNA machine 1 machine for R250 crore The committee sanctioned permission for the first two but put the Rapid DNA machine on holdmidday had published a series of reports highlighting the reservations that forensic scientists in India and USA had on the Rapid DNA technology mdash Maharashtra to be the first to get R2 crore Rapid DNA Analysis Machine March 9 and Without Criminal Database DNA machine cant work March 14 Insiders at the meeting said The committee did not even want to see the presentation on the Rapid DNA machine Now there is no question of the proposal even going to the chief ministerBudget reducedThis also means that FSLs sanctioned budget of R6 crore has been reduced after deducting the cost of the Rapid DNA machine It is very disappointing because the money could have been used to upgrade the seven regional laboratories explained a senior forensic scientist who wished anonymityDr Kulkarni refused to comment on Saturdays meeting Dr Harish Pathak professor and head of the forensic department at KEM Medical College said We were of the opinion right from the beginning that the Rapid DNA machine is not useful for case work samples Also scientists from the US had expressed apprehension about the utility and cost effectiveness of the sameSanjeev Sharma who represents a USbased company manufacturing rapid DNA in Gurgaon said I heard the government has put on hold the procurement of the Rapid DNA machine However whenever a fresh tender comes up we will place our bidThe other sideWhen contacted DG Technical and Legal S P Yadav downplayed the matter stating that the Rapid DNA machine did not even come up during the meeting and hence the question of its approval or not did not arise And on asking if the same would come up in this years procurement he said It is for the government to decideWhy Rapid DNATo increase the speed of forensic DNA analysis the state FSL was keen on procuring Rapid DNA Analysis Systems The technology was touted as being able to give results in less than two hours and would be used for handling highprofile cases Maharashtra would have been the first state to have such a hightech system However forensic scientists from across the country were not keen on the procurement of the machine for two reasons ndash the machine costs over Rs 2 crore and each DNA analysis sample might cost approx Rs 19000Rapid DNA technology is not currently suitable for crime scene samples Crime scene samples are often irreplaceable and Rapid DNA instruments consume the entire sample Also crime scene samples often have low amounts of DNA present contain DNA from more than one person mixtures and may have damaged or degraded DNA thereby necessitating that those DNA results be evaluated by a trained forensic DNA analyst onlyRs 25 crCost of a Rapid DNA machineAlso read Missing Cloth merchant case Cops exhume body for DNA test as accused confess to murderCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates