After China, India becomes the second-largest PPE produced country. India started manufacturing PPE kits within two months of the coronavirus outbreak and now producing over 4.5 lakh Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) suits daily. India didn’t make even a single coronavirus protective gear kit earlier and all PPE kits were being imported.
According to Union Minister Smriti Irani, more than 600 companies in the country are now certified manufacturer of PPEs.
A PPE kit consists of a mask, eye shield, shoe cover, gown, and gloves, which doctors and healthcare workers wear during the treatment of COVID-19 patients. But it has been in huge demand in the early days of the country’s fight against the deadly virus.
Production of PPE kits in India began within two months of the epidemic surfacing. Irani said, “At the beginning of May, only 52 companies were manufacturing PPE kits. Now it has sharply increased with more certified to manufacture PPEs.”
In May, the center had said it has ordered 2.22 crore PPEs, of which 1.43 crore will be made by domestic manufacturers. The rest is to be imported. Gradually, many small companies and even villages started producing kits for the government
In his latest address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a mention of this significant leap for the country.
“When the COVID-19 crisis started, not even a single PPE kit was manufactured in India and only a few N-95 masks were available. Today, two lakh PPE kits and two lakh N95 masks are manufactured in India daily,” he had said on May 12. Since then, the numbers have doubled.
Women in about 200 villages in Andhra Pradesh have re-launched a stagnant tailoring unit and are making large quantities of masks, shoe covers, and lab coats. They are making 15,000 masks, covers, 5,000 shoe covers, and 5,000 lab coats and supplying them to the state government.
Companies like Alok Industries, JCT Phagwara, Gokaldas Exports, Aditya Birla, are some of the domestic PPE kits manufacturers.
