DUBAI — The municipality of the emirate will offer better laboratory services with the expanded premises of Dubai Central Laboratory (DCL) set to be operational soon, a senior official has said.
The Dubai Municipality’s Projects Department has already spent a budget of over Dh76 million for the DCL expansion project that includes the construction of the ninth, and the biggest, building in the laboratory compound in Karama.
Millions more are now being spent on furnishing the building with state-of-the-art laboratory equipment, Director of DCL Hawa Bastaki told Khaleej Times. Bastaki did not specify the full cost of the project.
“All the tests that we have been doing in a small-scale will be done at a larger scale when the new facility starts operations.”
She said the four-storey building will house separate laboratories for testing food items, commercial products, toys and childcare products, cosmetic products, metrology products, electrical home appliances and personal care products.
“It will also have better facilities to conduct tests to investigate environmental pollution. We can test water, air and land pollution at the facility.”
Accredited by the Dubai Accreditation Department, various sections at DCL conduct tests, field product inspections, research, measurement and certification to agreed standards and regulations.
Bastaki said the Standardisation and Research Management Office at DCL implements national, regional and international standards and functions in all DCL activities.
“We recently registered with the International Laboratory Accreditation Corporation and we have access to all updates by IHS (Information Handling Services), which is a hub for providing critical information on standards and specifications in various fields.”
She said the DCL already has experts with doctorates in highly specialised streams who are rare in Arab countries. “We are providing more training to the existing staff on an ongoing basis and will have additional staff for handling the expanded facility. We always have room for improvement and constant development is a top priority in our planning strategy.”
The new building housing the laboratories is now being provided with all safety criteria taking into consideration the nature of appliances and materials it is going to accommodate.
Another building included in the DCL expansion project is meant for housing the Network Operations Centre for the DCL. This consists of central servers, a remote control room, workshops and staff offices.
The Network Operations Centre is meant for covering the municipality’s expansion projects in electronic services and information technology services under the civic body’s various departments. — sajila@khaleejtimes.com
DCL tests and
certifies
- food items
-commercial
products
-toys and
childcare products
-cosmetic
products
-personal care
products
- metrology
products
- electrical
home appliancess
-steel and
engineering products
- temstones,
gold and silver