With New Bills and Passing of It, NDPS (amendment) Act and major provisions made in recent years has led World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) to revoke the suspension of National dope testing library (NDTL) with immediate effect. This information was shared on a social media platform by Sports minister Shri Anurag Thakur. The National dope testing library (NDTL) got its fame back after attaining compliances as per international standards for Laboratories (ISL) with WADA’s technical Documents 2021.
Union sports minister Anurag Thakur, who informed on his official twitter page, “National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) regains the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accreditation. Restoration of accreditation is a boost to India’s efforts to achieve the highest global standards of excellence in sport. This is the result of untiring efforts by GOI (Government of India),” he posted.
The National dope testing Labrotary got a step down bump on August 20, 2019 when an accredited team visited from the WADA at the premises in 2018 and reported non compliances in the regard with laxity in procedures and put a sanction on the laboratory.
WADA, on its part, has been providing continuous guidance and support to make NDTL’s processes and methodologies fully compliant with ISL and its technical documents. WADA had first suspended the NDTL in August 2019 for a period of six months and later extended the ban after its periodical inspections showed that non-conformities still existed.
Due to NDTL’s continued suspension, the National Anti-Doping Agency(NADA) was forced to reduce its sample collection rate by at least 50 percent. The high cost involved in transporting the athlete’s urine samples to Qatar’s Doha and Belgium’s Ghent laboratories had strained the hands of NADA, which carried out its anti-doping activities nationwide on a meagre annual budget of Rs 10 crore (2019-20 financial year).
The budgetary analysis of testing at an international facility showed that a Sample ‘A’ was costing India $300 (INR 23,000 approx) per urine sample. The cost of getting a ‘B’ sample tested had touched $600 (INR 45,000) at the prevalent market rate. Earlier, an ‘A’ sample testing (not including the dope control officers’ sample collection cost) at NDTL would amount to $120.
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