Industries empowered fight against COVID through diversification

Jaipur, 18  June. The unforeseen pandemic of COVID while pushed the industries across the nation in lockdown, many of such institutions in Rajasthan rose up to the challenge and took innovation to defeat the disease. Appreciating the rapid response from the industries in the direction, additional chief secretary Industries to the government of Rajasthan, Dr. Subodh Agarwal said that the industries by taking up the task to produce PPE, masks and other protective supplies helped in the prevention of the disease spread. Previously, the country was largely dependent on foreign supplies for the protective kits, however, the following support from the government more and more indigenous firms ventured in the direction. According to the officials, the industries in the state have produced more than 2 lakh PPE kits, hundreds of thousands of Masks, and sensitizers.

As many companies made switched on to the protective kit manufacturing, it was to benefit of people across the country. One such company based in Dungarpur that previously were producing rainwear diversified to produce air and waterproof protection kits. The company New Zeel had its kits certified for quality from a lab in Tamil Nadu and has supplied one lakh of PPE kits to the central government while more than 10,000 were provided to the Rajasthan state government. They were able to achieve the production even as much of the existing trained staff had returned to their native states due to lockdown. The labour gap was fulfilled by training and employing locally available manpower, many of those employed in the process were local tribal women. Thus the innovation also helped in generating jobs even during the lockdown period.

Similarly, several other companies, such as umbrella industries from Phalna Pali, perfume manufacturer Padmavati industry Jaipur and even Khadi boards ventured into the process. This not only helped in ensuring easy availability of the kits, it also reduced the cost and increased employment opportunities.

Industries commissioner, Muktanand Agarwal informed that due to the industries diversifying in production of protective gear, the cost of PPE kits that used to be around Rs 1000- Rs 15000 per kit was reduced to Rs 500. Thus reducing the economic burden of COVID treatment and prevention also employment was generated for more than 1000 people. Along with motivating the companies for stepping in the production of such kits, the Rajasthan state government acting as a facilitator for such change provided nearly one lakh meter of nylon polyester fabric to the manufacturing industries.

While the big industries took up the production of non-woven medical grade PPE kits, the Khadi boards also stepped ahead for preparing washable cloth masks for the general public. The Khadi boards in the state have produced more than 2.5 lakh such masks, nearly half of which were distributed without cost to the district administration and other organizations.