Cos ready task forces to help fight 2nd wave | Economic Times

Indian companies have begun setting up emergency task forces following appeals for support from the state and central governments in handling the huge medical impact of what officials describe as an “unexpectedly virulent” second Covid wave across the country.The Tata Group, M&M, Aditya Birla Group, RPG, Kotak Mahindra, Infosys among several others have been approached to arrange oxygen supplies, test kits, quarantine centres and hospital beds to tackle the challenging situation.The Maharashtra government has also asked corporates to take up welfare activities like Shiv Bhojan Thali, a scheme by the state to provide food thalis (plates) to the poor at a subsidised rate of ₹5, through the CSR route to lessen the impact on the most vulnerable sections of society.Top industry officials have requested governments to avoid lockdowns as far as possible and let factories function, even as the governments appealed to corporates to take care of employees and encourage work from home wherever possible. “Both lives and incomes are important and everyone has suggested ways to handle it keeping health as a priority,” said an official who attended a meeting of industry captains with the Maharashtra chief minister and health minister on Saturday.Corporates have also been asked to support migrant workers by ensuring incomes and food and supplies. The migration levels this year have been lower than last year, say industry officials as most of the factory, infrastructure and construction sites continue to function as usual.As thousands of Indians tested positive for the virus, Maharashtra chief minister Udhav Thackeray, state health minister Rajesh Tope and other senior ministers held a meeting on Saturday afternoon with top corporate honchos and industry bodies CII and Ficci, requesting companies to help with oxygen supplies, testing capacities to reduce the huge workload on path labs and factory sites or land for quarantine centres and setting up hospital beds. Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal addressed Ficci on the same issues last week.Those who attended the meeting included Salil Parikh of Infosys, Banmali Agrawala of Tata Group, Harsh Goenka of RPG, Anish Shah of M&M, Baba Kalyani of Bhata Forge, Nikhil Meswani of Reliance, Uday Kotak of Kotak Mahindra and SM Subramanian of L&T.Ficci president Uday Shankar said the immediate focus is to scale up testing, isolation and scaling up micro containment zones.82134008This is a national crisis and the Centre, state and corporates are coming together and setting up a task force to accelerate the vaccination drive. "The spread of infection is a deep concern. However the corporates have to avoid large-scale disruption in economic activity," Shankar said.The government has also asked corporates to continue to run factories to maintain employment and has promised swift approvals for any licences needed in this regard.Anish Shah, CEO, Mahindra Group said, "We have offered to work with the government to establish facilities for extra beds in multiple cities across Maharashtra. We can design these and provide the required logistics support. Our nursing school can help provide nurses; we will also explore setting up a cadre of doctors and paramedics by reaching out to retired medics and armed forces veterans. Testing and vaccination facilities can be set up. We will depute some of our best project managers to help as needed."The Mahindra Group has already made contributions by way of ICU beds, emergency cab services, quarantine centres, face shields, face masks, sanitisers, aerosol boxes, oximeters and IT support. Tata Group officials said all group entities are pitching in to provide support wherever required."We have started off in places where our group has a strong presence and will scale up resources as our task force reaches out across the country. The group is supplying oxygen, medical supplies and individual companies are also pooling in help, e.g., TCS employees have created isolation centres in BKC," the official said.RPG Group chairman Harsh Goenka said his group is putting together a task force to urgently plan and organise resources to help. “It is top-notch priority and our teams are being readied to help as much as possible through medical supplies or quarantine centres," he said.