New Delhi: Union Government along with States/UTs has been relentlessly working for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19. Union Government’s central role has been in strengthening health infrastructure to fight the pandemic.
Along with augmenting COVID-19 facilities, Centre has been providing medical supplies free of cost to the State/UT governments to supplement their efforts. Most of the products supplied by Government of India (GOI) were not being manufactured in the country in the beginning, and there was a global demand due to the pandemic resulting in scare availability in the foreign markets.
However, with the combined efforts of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Ministry of Textiles and Ministry of Pharmaceuticals, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and others, domestic industry has been encouraged to manufacture and supply essential medical equipment like PPEs, N95 masks, ventilators etc., during this period. With the result, resolve for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’ has been strengthened and most of the supplies made by GOI are domestically manufactured.
Since 1st April 2020, Centre has distributed more than 2.02 crore N95 masks and more than 1.18 crore PPE kits to States / UTs / Central Institutions, free of cost. Also, more than 6.12 crore HCQ tablets have been distributed to them.
In addition, so far, 11,300 ‘Make in India’ ventilators have been dispatched to various States / UTs / Central Institutions, out of which 6154 ventilators stand already delivered to various hospitals. GOI is also ensuring their installation/commissioning. This will help to bridge the massive gap in availability of ventilators in COVID ICU facilities. MoHFW is also supplying 1.02 lakh oxygen cylinders to States/UTs, out of which 72,293 have been delivered to strengthen oxygen beds there.
Till now, 7.81 lakh PPEs and 12.76 lakh N95 masks have been supplied in Delhi, 11.78 lakh PPEs and 20.64 N95 masks in Maharashtra, and 5.39 lakh PPEs and 9.81 lakh N95 masks in Tamil Nadu by MoHFW.
