Anurag Thakur launches 6 new & rare Reference Materials; to reinforce Anti-Doping Testing

Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Singh Thakur launched six new and rare Reference Materials (RMs), the highest form of chemical required for anti-doping analysis in all World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-accredited laboratories throughout the world, on Sunday.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports said that the six RMs were developed in less than a year by the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) in collaboration with the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Guwahati and the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM), Jammu. 

In the presence of Sports Secretary Sujata Chaturvedi and other senior officials from the Sports Ministry, Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur launched the RMs during the 15th Governing Body Meeting of the NDTL.

With the development of these RMs, NDTL has gained the accolade of being one of the few labs in the world, wherein such RMs have been developed.

“These Reference Materials are not readily available across the world but are needed by every WADA-accredited laboratory for their anti-doping analysis. India itself has been importing RMs from Canada and Australia, however, with this scientific development, India has indeed taken a step towards Atmanirbhar Bharat, which is the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the field of anti-doping science. Very soon, we will also be exporting these RMs to other countries,” Anurag Thakur stated. 

How will these 6 RMs help the anti-doping community?

"The availability of these unique Reference Materials would assist the entire anti-doping fraternity in strengthening their testing skills and reign in an age of mutual cooperation among governments for fostering fair play in sports policy around the world," Anurag Thakur added.

The introduction of these Reference Materials will improve anti-doping testing, aligning with the Sports Ministry's commitment to the development and successful execution of anti-doping programmes in the country with the only goal of ensuring fair play in sports.

Three of the six Reference Materials were developed in collaboration with NIPER-Guwahati and the CSIR-IIIM in Jammu. Last year, experts from NDTL and NIPER-Guwahati succeeded in synthesising two unique, indigenously created Reference Materials, which were launched and shared with other WADA-accredited laboratories in 2021.

Image: Twitter/@ianuragthakur