Latest News | Orient Electric Enters Hygiene Products Segment

New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) CK Birla Group firm Orient Electric on Friday said it has entered the hygiene products segment with the launch of UV Sanitech, sensing a business opportunity in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

The company said UV Sanitech is a box-shaped sanitisation chamber and claims it uses ultraviolet (UV-C) light to kill viruses including coronavirus, bacteria and fungi from an object's surface within minutes.

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"The company is manufacturing the sanitisation box in-house at its Faridabad (Haryana) plant and plans to introduce more products in this category in the near future," Orient Electric said in a statement.

Orient Electric MD and CEO Rakesh Khanna said, the COVID-19 crisis has led to a significant shift in the consumer quest and preferences in India, leading to a spike in demand for health and hygiene products.

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“This trend is likely to continue in future as maintaining the highest hygiene standards will be part of the 'new normal' in the post COVID-19 era,” he said, adding that Orient UV Sanitech kills over 99.9 per cent viruses and bacteria using Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) method, which is safe and highly effective.

The company said Orient UV Sanitech is 'Made in India' and priced at Rs 11,999. It is available on Flipkart and Amazon. PTI SVK ANS ANS 07171103 NNNNe.

The AIU said a phone call wasn't a requirement and that it usually asks employees not to call athletes because that could undermine the testing program.

“Any advanced notice of testing, in the form of a phone call or otherwise, provides an opportunity for athletes to engage in tampering or evasion or other improper conduct which can limit the efficacy of testing,” the AIU said in an e-mailed statement.

The AIU added that under World Anti-Doping Agency rules “proof that a telephone call was made is not a requisite element of a missed test and the lack of any telephone call does not give the athlete a defense to the assertion of a missed test.”

Some of Coleman's earlier missed tests were not with the AIU but with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, whose own handbook for athletes says phone calls are usually reserved only for the last five minutes of a time slot and “to confirm the unavailability of the athlete, not to locate an athlete for testing.”

Athletes are required to list their whereabouts for an hour each day when they must be available to be tested. A violation means an athlete either did not fill out forms telling authorities where they could be found, or that they weren't where they said they would be when testers arrived.

Coleman said in his post he has been appealing the latest missed test for six months with the AIU, which runs the anti-doping program for World Athletics. He explained there was no record of anyone coming to his home and that if he had been called he was only five minutes away.

It's the second time Coleman has faced a potential ban for a whereabouts violation. Coleman won the 100 meters at the world championships in Doha, Qatar, last September after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency dropped his case for missed tests because of a technicality.

“I have never and will never use performance enhancing supplements or drugs,” Coleman wrote Tuesday.

“I am willing to take a drug test EVERY single day for the rest of my career for all I care to prove my innocence.” After winning the gold medal in Doha, Coleman said he needed to be more careful to keep track of his whereabouts.

“I haven't been careless. I think I can just be more mature about it, more diligent about updating the app. But I mean, I think everybody in this room is not perfect. Everybody has made mistakes,” he said.

“Going forward, I just try to do a better job about being more diligent about it.”

Coleman is the latest in a string of runners hit with whereabouts charges in 2020.

The AIU filed a similar charge this month against women's 400-meter world champion Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain. She was already under investigation when she won gold in Doha last year in the fastest time since 1985.

Former U.S. national 200 champion Deajah Stevens was suspended in May. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)