BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State Government on Saturday cracked the whip on both Health and Excise officials, investigation into Eastern India Pharmaceutical Laboratory’s affairs has pointed at something fishy. The firm may have planned to cash in on the shortage of country brew by manufacturing huge volumes of alcohol-based medicinal formulations.While police had seized 1,550 bottles of Epeecarm from a godown of the firm at Baramunda on Friday, what has raised eyebrows is the huge volumes of bottles, lids and labels it had placed order for.Cops, who seized invoices for 20,000 plastic bottles, 28,000 lids and a similar number of labels, said the whole plan was to produce formulations much more than the firm was officially allowed to.The firm had procured 1,000 litre of rectified spirit from Shakti Sugar in January but it may have got more from illegal sources given that there was a growing demand for country brew. The demand grew after Aska 40, the popular country brew, went missing from the market after the molasses tank disaster in Aska last month.Sources even said the firm may have brought in the spirit from Kolkata for this purpose. Meanwhile, police on Saturday produced owner of the firm SN Rath, marketing manager Bhagirathi Mishra, driver Biswanath Mallick and another person in a local court.Friday’s seizure of Epeecarm had come after arrest of Mishra. The formulation has been sent to forensic lab for examination.
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