New Delhi: The Azim Premji Foundation has pledged over Rs 2,000 crore to aid the fight against Covid-19 in the country, which is nearly double its earlier allocation.
In a statement, the organisation, founded by former Wipro chairman Azim Premji, noted that it had increased its financial commitment towards tackling the pandemic from Rs 1,125 crore to Rs 2,125 crore.
“Our comprehensive COVID-19 response has been supported by ₹ 1,125 crore, we have increased this commitment to ₹ 2,125 crore to enable our substantially expanding work on vaccination across 10 states, with a commitment to increase this further if the need demands,” read the statement, released on 15 June.
According to the foundation, the money will be used to support the public system in vaccinating people across the country by augmenting its capacity to vaccinate, create demand for vaccination through community mobilisation and deal with hesitancy.
It has already built capacity and enabled operations to serve over 15 crore people in more than 100 districts in some of the most disadvantaged regions of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Puducherry, Telangana, and Uttarakhand among others.
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10,000 oxygen beds, 1,000 ICUs provided by Foundation
The Azim Premji Foundation has a twin aim of responding to immediate healthcare demands triggered due to the pandemic and catering to the long-term public healthcare challenges.
To this end, it has been strengthening the frontline through training to build awareness, conducting proper screening, tracing and quarantining while equipping them adequately with equipment and protection kits.
The organisation has also helped increase testing capacity, utilising existing capacity more efficiently and enabling access by decentralising testing and sample collection and has augmented the overall treatment capacities for intermediate as well as tertiary care of the public health system across levels.
So far, the foundation has contributed over 10,000 oxygenated beds, 1,000 ICU beds, 18 PSA oxygen generation plants, 10,000 oxygen concentrators, 80 ventilators, 300 Bi-PAP machines, 600 High Flow Nasal Cannulas (HFNCs) and other ICU equipment along with supporting infrastructure such as hospital piping and cylinders.
For the frontline, it has provided over 2 lakh PPE kits, 50,000 pulse oximeters and other equipment.
A not-for-profit organisation founded in 2000, the Azim Premji Foundation had been focusing on elementary education system in rural government schools before the pandemic hit. However, since March 2020, the foundation has been working to aid Covid efforts across the country.
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