Mumbai, Nov. 19 -- Maharashtra's Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) has constituted a committee to scrutinise a major procurement of 839 smoke detectors for three hospitals, after complaints surfaced, alleging grossly inflated pricing and questionable classification of high-end DETEX ductless autonomous smoke detector-cum-extraction units. The action follows a government resolution (GR) issued on November 4, which contained plans to procure 839 DETEX units at Rs.9.54 lakh each - a price activists say is nearly 20 times the market rate. The total order, worth Rs.79.10 crore, had been cleared on the grounds that the equipment was a single-source product available only from one vendor. According to the GR, the units were to be supplied to Sassoon General Hospital, Pune (350 units), KEM Hospital, Mumbai (136 units), and Solapur Super Speciality Hospital (353 units) - all through the same company. The probe was initiated after RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar wrote to medical education secretary Dheeraj Kumar and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, as reported by HT on November 6, arguing that each unit should cost no more than Rs.50,000. Subsequently, in a letter dated November 6, the Medical Education and Drugs Department noted that while administrative approval had been granted, serious objections had been raised regarding the device's classification and quoted cost, which the department said could be closer to Rs.4 crore for an entire system, not Rs.79 crore. The letter also instructed the DMER commissioner to constitute an inquiry committee, appoint technical experts and conduct a detailed verification process before any work order or payment is executed. The committee has also been asked to gather supply orders, invoices and commissioning reports from institutions within and outside Maharashtra that have purchased similar equipment earlier, along with utilisation records from medical colleges and government hospitals. However, activists remain sceptical about the credibility of the process. "Committees like these are often just formalities. Nothing happens to the people responsible," said Kumbhar. "Those who approved the proposal are now the ones examining it. That's a clear conflict of interest. Citizens have no way of knowing what happens inside internal committees."...