IQRA Biotech Services, which is a public-private partnership with the Biotech Park Lucknow, is in talks with the Governments of Malaysia and Bahrain to establish a DNA identification bank in the two countries.
The two countries approached IQRA to devise a mechanism on the same lines on which it developed the Lucknow DNA bank.
In Malaysia, the health ministry has already passed the proposal of developing the bank. The proposal, at present, is with the finance ministry, which is looking into the monetary aspect of the plan. The amount size of this project is expected to be over $1,000 million.
The talks are at an advanced-level with the Government of Bahrain as well. “The pre-requisite of the two governments is to distinguish between the nationals of their country and the visitors, to check the over stay of visitors,” Saeed Ahmad, director (human DNA bank), Biotech Park told Business Standard.
According to the arrangement, DNA bank will be established at the entry points of the country like the airports and seaports. Once established it will be mandated to seek a 10-point fingerprint, few forensic anthropological details and one drop of blood (for visitor visa) from the persons travelling through these places.
The requirement will stretch to four drop of blood if the person enters the country on an work visa. After the DNA inspection, results so attained will be sent to a hub, which in turn will be connected to various terminals within the country like police stations and hospitals.
Other agencies or private sector units like hotel etc may also get the information under the same if they want to be a part of the system. It is not mandatory for them.
Under the arrangement, IQRA will be responsible for the establishment and initial running of the project. It will also take care of the initial deployment of scientists in the bank and will also have an upper hand in deciding the use of equipments.
“Our people will be there either on rotation or otherwise, which will be decided as and when the project gets completed. This exercise is expected to be made operational for a period of three years from the date of its commencement,” Ahmad added.
He further informed that IQRA will be offering training to about 110 scientists to take the project forward. For indigenous usage of the benefits of the DNA Bank, IQRA is in talks with four airports in Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Srinagar.
“Out of these, Mumbai international airport and Srinagar is keen on having a demonstration.” Earlier this year, IQRA under the patronage of Bio Tech Park developed a DNA Bank in Lucknow.
The Park obtains different details (documentary, family, maternal, paternal) from a person and measures various Anthropological and Forensic Anthropological details, Biometric along with the hand writing sample, signatures and photographs of the persons as well as all 10 fingerprints as hard copy.
All these are transferred to a SIM like memory Card of 16 K capacity smart card called DNA Card. At the same time four drops of blood and DNA is stored under highly controlled conditions for the period of next 50 years, which can be used for cross reference if needed.
The card can be read by an electronic device called Smart Cad Reader, which needs a dedicated software called IQRASOFT, a property of IQRA Biotech Services, developed by India’s three different companies.
The infrared electronic fingerprint scanner are used to enroll electronic images of fingerprints and transferred to central database. When needed scanners can search and find the correct fingerprint at the speed of 2 lakh fingerprint per second.
