Doping menace: India's first dietary supplements testing centre to come up in Ahmedabad

The Sports Ministry will set up India's first-ever dietary supplements testing facility at the National Forensic Science University in Ahmedabad in its bid to curb the doping menace in the country.

Following a three-day world symposium on doping, the Sports Ministry, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India and the NFSU signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Saturday for setting up the testing facility.

"The presence of undeclared compounds in the composition of dietary supplements is a serious concern. As of now, no testing facility is available in India for ensuring the absence of 'Prohibited Substance' in the dietary supplements," the PIB said in a statement.

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"To overcome this shortcoming and to ensure quality dietary supplements for sportspersons, a major step has been taken today to create a testing facility at the NFSU in collaboration with the FSSAI. This MoU will help to achieve this objective."

The prohibited list is extremely detailed and includes a wide variety of both medicinal and non-medicinal substances.

However, the use of "non-prohibited" dietary supplements is not always completely safe and one of the risks associated with the use of dietary supplements is unintended doping originating from contaminated products.

But with this, India hopes to become a regional leader for availability of such a testing facility.

"This MoU will benefit athletes and athlete-support personnel by educating and spreading awareness about inadvertent doping due to prohibited substances present in nutritional supplements," Sports Minister Anurag Thakur said.

"This facility being established at NFSU will help the stakeholders, not only in the country but also in the entire region."

India is ranked third behind Russia and Italy in doping as per a WADA report published in December last year. Tokyo Olympics finalist discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur, who has been banned for three years, has become the latest Indian athlete to bring infamy to the country.