Centre fails to find talent for World Bank project

The booming economy and increasing job opportunities for technically-qualified professionals in the private sector are having an adverse effect on the central government's plans for implementing its prestigious World Bank-funded capacity building programme in the food and drugs sector in the country.

While the government has made progress in establishing world-class infrastructure and institutional framework like drug and food testing laboratories and state-of-the-art facilities for drug regulatory officials, it has failed to attract the right talent needed to carry out the regulatory functions.

The five-year project, which began in 2003, is scheduled to be completed by June 2008.

Acknowledging the seriousness of the issue, the World Bank, in its update on the progress of the project, said: "While there has been progress on putting in place the needed policy and institutional framework and infrastructure, human resource issues "" central to regulatory effectiveness "" remain mostly unaddressed."

Senior ministry officials admitted that the human resource crunch was hampering the timely implementation of the programme.

"We have strengthened the infrastructure capabilities of drug regulatory departments across the country. However, the recruitments are done locally by the states. Even after we offered to pay the salaries of the new recruits during the initial years of the project, very few states have appointed technical professionals," the officials added.

Incidentally, human resource crunch is not the only hitch before the capacity building programme. The much-hyped online networking of drug regulatory offices and search facility of drug applications filed in any part of the country are yet to be operational.