Mr. Pankaj Bector is the Head of Procurement at India’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), an agency under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that focuses on disease surveillance and the enforcement of public health regulations.

He wasn’t familiar with sustainable procurement until 2018 when he participated in a Sustainable Health in Procurement Project (SHiPP) workshop. Organised by India`s Centre for Chronic Disease Control (CCDC) and Health Care Without Harm, the workshop’s goal was to raise awareness among suppliers and procurement officers of the impact that various products have on communities and the environment.

Under Mr. Pankaj’s initiative and as a result of new knowledge gained during the workshop, NCDC further implemented changes, such as expediting the installation of effluent treatment plants and sewage treatment plants for the efficient and improved handling of liquid biomedical waste.

Following the workshop, one of his first actions was to work with suppliers and health care staff to phase out PVC gloves, one of the most widely used supplies across the organisation, and worked to replace them with nitrile gloves. His efforts were successful. Currently, 100 percent of the institute’s laboratories have moved to using nitrile gloves, and the guidelines for the use of nitrile gloves are widely adopted in the divisions of GeM.

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