The Hindu : Sport : Delhi laboratory gets WADA accreditation

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Delhi laboratory gets WADA accreditation

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has granted accreditation to the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL), New Delhi, ending years of uncertainty over the status of the facility, set up nearly two decades ago.

The decision came at the WADA Executive Committee meeting in Montreal on Saturday.

“The National Dope Testing Laboratory has successfully completed the requirements of the WADA accreditation process monitored by the agency’s Laboratory Working Committee. The New Delhi laboratory thus becomes the 34th WADA accredited laboratory in the world,” stated a WADA release.

“This is great news,” said the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Secretary-General, Randhir Singh, on Sunday. “It is a great step for Indian sports in the fight against doping,” said Randhir, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and a former member of the WADA Foundation Board.

Randhir said that the decision was a step in putting in place one of the necessary requirements for the country to find its feet in the international sports arena.

“We were pursuing it on a day to day basis,” said the Union Sports Minister, M.S. Gill. “In my meeting with the chairman and DG of WADA in Beijing, I said India is going to have an anti-doping regime better than anybody else in the world,” said the minister.

“Various steps have been taken last week to make NDTL operational at the earliest in view of the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune,” said Mr. Gill.

Excuse, no more

The lack of an accredited laboratory had been cited time and again by Indian sports officials as the excuse for the failure to check the rampant doping that goes on in the country.

The efforts to get accreditation for the Delhi laboratory, formerly known as the Dope Control Centre (DCC), housed in the Nehru Stadium here, were redoubled in 2001 after India was given the task of hosting the Afro-Asian Games.

In May last year, when things had not moved forward satisfactorily, the IOA President, Suresh Kalmadi, hinted that his organisation might have to look for a lab abroad for testing requirements in the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The NDTL becomes the fifth lab in Asia to gain accreditation after Seoul, Beijing, Bangkok and Penang (Malaysia).

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