What Happens When a Balloon Becomes a Free Drug? The Sorry Story of Nirodh 13/01/2021
Representative photo: Anna Shvets/Pexels.
When one hears ‘HLL’, one is likely to recall Hindustan Lever Ltd., a venerated FMCG multinational. But this company is now called Hindustan Unilever Ltd. – HUL – and ‘HLL’ is really HLL Lifecare Ltd., a PSU that was formerly Hindustan Latex Ltd., established in 1966.
HLL has been in the news for having procured ventilators for the government during the country’s COVID-19 epidemic. More recently, the government picked it to procure COVID-19 vaccines as well.
Innocuous as this choice may seem, HLL actually has a sorry history that should make us wonder why it was selected – especially over the Union health ministry – for such an important task.