New Delhi, Mar 27 (KNN) The Central government has given permission to distilleries and sugar mills to manufacture hand sanitizers in bulk to meet the demand of sanitizers amid COVID-19 pandemic.

The government has already issued licences to 45 distilleries and 564 other manufacturers.

''To maintain demand and supply of hand sanitisers, states have been asked to remove any bottlenecks in supply of raw materials for making hand sanitizers and to give permissions to the applicants, including distilleries, who intend to manufacture hand sanitisers,'' said an official statement from Ministry of Consumer Affairs.

''More than 55 distilleries are likely to be given permission in one or two days; and many more are being motivated to produce sanitizers in this scenario,'' the statement added.

Most of them have commenced production and others are likely to commence production in a week's time; thus, there will be sufficient supply of hand sanitizers for the consumers and hospitals, it added.

In order to ensure that hand sanitizers are made available to general public and hospitals at a reasonable price, Government has also fixed the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of sanitizers. The retail prices of hand sanitizers shall not be more than Rs 100 per bottle of 200ml; the prices of other quantities of hand sanitizers shall be fixed in the proportion of these prices.