Rotary and United Way Bengaluru will deploy 50,000 oxygen concentrators, 100 PSA Oxygen Plants across India
New Delhi : To strengthen India’s response to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and prepare for a potential third wave, Rotary clubs throughout India and United Way Bengaluru are collaborating to provide 50,000 oxygen concentrators and 100 PSA plants across the country by August 2021.
The partnership, which also brings together ACT Grants (a not-for-profit movement created
by the Venture Capitalist (VC) and start-up community in India), Swasth Alliance (a not-for-profit alliance of over 150+ healthcare organisations) and Feeding India (a not-for-profit run by Zomato) and MyGov, (Government of India’s citizen engagement and crowdsourcing platform) aims to help resolve the crisis at hand – oxygen shortage and the rising number of deaths across states by donating oxygen concentrators to public health institutions and NGOs.
United way Bengaluru and all other collaboration partners have funded this initiative. 15000 oxygen concentrators have already been deployed over the last couple of months. Rotary is distributing the oxygen concentrators to hospitals and Covid care facilities, track their utilization, and support more demand for such equipment and redirect it to primary healthcare centers in rural areas as well.
Mr Shekhar Mehta, Rotary International’s President-elect (2021-2022), said, “Rotary’s motto of ‘Service above Self’ has been driving our 1.2 lakh members in over 4000 clubs across the country to respond to their communities ever since pandemic hit last year. During the second wave this year, we continue to fight the pandemic with over 1000 Covid beds and free vaccination centers set up, along with assistance with procurement, cold chain storage and delivery of vaccines across various states. This partnership today will intensify our work with state governments to identify the best utility of the 50,000 oxygen concentrators in areas of greatest need across the country, so that we are best prepared for the third wave of coronavirus in case it comes our way.”
Mr Venkata Sudhakar, Director United Way Bengaluru added, “We are proud to be part of this initiative and glad to have gotten an opportunity to collaborate with Rotary on this project. Just within a period of three weeks, we have been able to finalize this initiative and are now ready to serve and help people all over India.”
Piyush Sinha, Lead Partnerships Swasth said, “The procurement of equipment for this alliance started with 150 volunteers from around the world. And now, we are a team of over 1.65 lakh volunteers. Swasth team is proud to offer a helping hand in this effort to Rotary.”
The guest of honour, Rajya Sabha MP Mr Vivek Tankha said, “This indeed is one of the best coalitions–of good deeds and ideas aimed at helping people through these challenging times. Reaching lakhs of people in 2-3 three months, this partnership indeed is an impressive initiative.”
Also present at the event today were other partner members of the Coalition Aarti Mohan Co-Founder Sattva, Dr Ajay Nair, CEO Swasth, and Aneesh Reddy CEO capillary Tech.
Last year, when India was battling the first wave of coronavirus, Rotary members across the 4000+ clubs all over India had raised Rs 105 crores and donated it to the PM Cares Fund for relief work. Furthermore, another Rs 150 crores were spent on the ground levels towards providing ventilators, face masks, food, sanitizers and PPE kits to the hospitals and people. The organization which had earlier played an instrumental role in polio eradication in India, has since donated beds, medical refrigerators, facilitated the transportation of millions of vaccine doses and helped in vaccinating people across India.