State authorities are coming up with cut-price sanitization chambers across the country amid the coronavirus outbreak.
By Riya Sharma
A Tripura Police officer has come up with a cut-price, 360-degree full-body sanitization chamber following a video tutorial. The chamber is a vinyl-covered booth that sprinkles a one percent diluted solution of sodium hypochlorite for four to five seconds in spray form.
Dr. Kiran Kumar K, Superintendent of Police of Khowai district in Tripura said, “We designed this full-body sanitization chamber following the Ministry of Health guidelines and it’s a very effective disinfecting unit.”
A similar contraption has been devised in Rajasthan at Jaipur’s Bagru Police Station, according to news reports.
Dr. Mayank Dwivedi, Director DIITM at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said that the DRDO is not privy to the knowledge of these contraptions made in the different parts of the country.
Dr. Kiran Kumar K said that this contraption, made from the guidance of a video, costs Rs 15,000 while the DRDO sanitization chambers cost Rs 4,00,000.
“Similar units have been installed by the District Collector in Tirupur district of Tamil Nadu and also in Jaipur, Rajasthan. All following the same step,” Dr. Kumar K said.
Dr. Mayank Dwivedi said that the DRDO can only guarantee and comment on the works done by the organization.
He said, “It’s something like having similar products available in the market and if you change the brand, the prices change. So, I cannot comment on the quality of these contraptions because we aren’t aware of what kind of quality standards people have adopted and the kind of materials they have used, and what’s the longevity, reliability, and safety of the system.”
He said that DRDO being the premier Research and Development (R&D) organization only thinks about the quality, reliability, longevity, and safety of a system while developing it.
“Our product, without a doubt, is a quality product— that we can guarantee— and good quality doesn’t mean the cost will always be higher, we should also look at the life-cycle cost. High and low costs just depend on the parameters of design and production,” he said.
“Alcohol sanitizers are effective, the contraption that the policeman made might also be effective and the DRDO chambers might also be effective, depends upon how you grade it, how you test it. As we progress up the effectiveness curve, it requires exponential increases in production costs to gain marginal effectiveness,” he said.
D.C. Sharma, a professor in Rajasthan said, “Obviously, these contraptions won’t be as effective as the DRDO chambers but we don’t have these DRDO chambers everywhere.”
Having something is better than having nothing at all, he said.
