WADA revokes NDTL’s suspension | More sports News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: In a big relief to India’s anti-doping movement, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Thursday restored the accreditation of the country’s National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) with immediate effect after it became fully compliant with the latest version of International Standard for Laboratories (ISL) and with WADA‘s technical documents, 2021.
The news was shared by union sports minister Anurag Thakur, who informed on his official twitter page, “National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) regains the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accreditation. Restoration of accreditation is a boost to India’s efforts to achieve the highest global standards of excellence in sport. This is the result of untiring efforts by GOI (Government of India),” he posted.

NDTL’s WADA accreditation was suspended on August 20, 2019 based on non-compliances which were observed during on-site assessment of the laboratory held in September 2018. WADA, on its part, has been providing continuous guidance and support to make NDTL’s processes and methodologies fully compliant with ISL and its technical documents. WADA had first suspended the NDTL in August 2019 for a period of six months and later extended the ban after its periodical inspections showed that non-conformities still existed.
Due to NDTL’s continued suspension, the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) was forced to reduce its sample collection rate by at least 50 percent. The high cost involved in transporting the athlete’s urine samples to Qatar’s Doha and Belgium’s Ghent laboratories had strained the hands of NADA, which carried out its anti-doping activities nationwide on a meagre annual budget of Rs 10 crore (2019-20 financial year).
An ‘A’ sample testing abroad was costing India $300 (INR 23,000 approx) per urine sample. The cost of getting a ‘B’ sample tested had touched $600 (INR 45,000) at the prevalent market rate. Earlier, an ‘A’ sample testing (not including the dope control officers’ sample collection cost) at NDTL would amount to $120.