Manpower shortage hits HMD as it targets 1 billion syringes by June 2021

New Delhi: Manpower shortage has hit the production at Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices Limited (HMD) hard as it strives to reach the target of 1 billion auto-disable syringes per annum by June 2021. The company’s syringes are an important part of the ongoing massive vaccination campaign to eradicate Covid-19.

One major ongoing concern raised by Mr. Rajiv Nath, HMD’s Managing Director is that instead of the employment going up it has been going down for the last 6 weeks due to the ongoing second wave of Covid as well as workers on leave for ongoing Panchayat elections, harvesting and wedding season in Uttar Pradesh.

“We have currently extreme shortages of manpower. To reach our target of 100 crore syringes capacity, HMD needs to strengthen our team and employ 3200 people but currently have on roll 2700. We are 500 people short to achieve our target of 100 Crore pcs of AD syringes by June this year,” said Mr. Nath.

“Our role is akin to supplying guns to soldiers in the battleground, the vaccines are the bullets. We are in the process of immediate recruitment of 500 people to increase production at our factories in the Faridabad industrial district in Haryana. We are looking for hardworking sincere people from states like Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, UP and Rajasthan that are high school pass and fresher who we will train with requisite skills. We have air-cooled and air-conditioned factories with good management and cooperative staff that trains and teaches unskilled youngsters to work on various automatic machines and ensure quality output as we are making life-saving medical products in a hygienic environment. HMD is ensuring complete protection of the health, safety & wellbeing of each of its employees by enforcing discipline and adherence to best practices to prevent Covid at the workplace. It’s a noble cause, we know our responsibilities.” added Mr. Nath.

HMD is a leading manufacturer of Disposable Syringes in the World and possibly the largest for Kojak Auto Disable syringes that is making India proud with its global recognition as a key international supplier of critically needed syringes to COVAX facility of WHO (via UNICEF) , Brazil and even Japan for Covid Vaccination while being on track to timely supply the 4 orders received from GoI on 0.5 ml AD syringes totaling 44.25 Crore pcs of which 21.75 Crore pcs has been supplied by April end to help in vaccinating India against Covid and balance by September.

Last year in December, HMD has also already dispatched 14 Crore AD syringes to the COVAX stockpile Facility created in anticipation of supporting the global worldwide Vaccination Drive.

“This is in addition to our ongoing global contractual commitments to support global vaccination projects for 0.1ml & 0.5 ml AD Kojak syringes in developing world whether for Yellow Fever or Measles or Hepatitis B or Pentavalent or BCG etc in addition to Covid vaccination requirements of 0.3ml AD syringes for Pfizer’s vaccines or 0.5 ml AD Kojak for Astra Zeneca/ Serums or Bharat Biotech’s vaccines. However this year our focus isIndia as our country needs to come 1^st. We have reserved over 2/3^rd capacity for India and declined orders from many overseas new potential buyers” said Mr. Rajiv Nath.

From 50 Crore pcs per annum capacity of 0.5 ml AD Syringes in June 2020, the company is currently producing at rate of 80 Crore per annum and hopes to create capacity of 100 Crore by June end & hopefully120 Crore pcs per annum by September this year, for this one size alone. 0.5ml is the size sought by Public Healthcare in India and most countries for Covid.

HMD’s machines crank out more than 3.75 lac syringes of various types per hour at its factories spread over 11 acres in Faridabad industrial district in Haryana. With over 9 plants, it has created a niche for the disposable syringe ―DISPOVAN which is today the most popular brand in syringe market in India with over 60% market share with DispoVan Needle and DispoVan Insulin Syringes having over 70% Market Share.