India is reeling from the Coronavirus outbreak with the country under a lockdown till the 14th April 2020. The virus has thrown the country into turmoil with dozens of deaths and thousand plus infected. With a huge burden on the country’s healthcare system, the Indian government asked for help from the corporates in dealing with the COVID-19. Mahindra and Mahindra Chairman Anand Mahindra offered to convert his resorts into quarantine facilities while pledging to contribute 100 percent of his salary to the fight against the debilitating virus. Mahindra is also focussing its engineering efforts on providing crucial equipment like ventilators to Indian hospitals at an inexpensive rate.
Mahindra’s engineering division is working on manufacturing prototypes of ventilators as India is facing a shortage of this crucial medical device. Anand Mahindra tweeted “So, so proud of our Kandivali & Igatpuri teams who confined themselves to the factories & without sleep produced this in 48 hrs. With humility, we will seek guidance from specialists on the usefulness of the device. Whatever the outcome, they have shown India fights back...,".
In another tweet which in reference to Pawan Goenka, MD of Mahindra & Mahindra, Anand elaborated about his company working with an indigenous maker of ICU ventilators. "As @GoenkaPk tweeted, we are simultaneously working with an indigenous maker of ICU ventilators. These are sophisticated machines costing between 5 to 10 lakhs. This device is an interim lifesaver & the team estimates it will cost below Rs 7,500," said another tweet by Mahindra.
Mahindra is taking a series of steps to contain the coronavirus outbreak like production of ventilators at their production facilities in India. Pawan Goenka, Managing Director of Mahindra and Mahindra was overwhelmed with the support they are receiving from different quarters for their effort in making ventilators available to the Indian healthcare system.
In his tweet, Goenka said “ At one end, we along with two large PSUs are working with an existing manufacturer of high spec ventilators to help them to simplify design and scale-up capacity. Our engineering team is right now with them working on it”.