Coronavirus impact: Mahindra to make ventilators, Anil Agarwal pledges ₹100 crore

Mahindra Group will immediately begin work to explore how its factories could make ventilators, chairman Anand Mahindra said on Sunday, as the spike in Covid-19 positive cases turns the spotlight on the need for life-saving and critical care equipment.

The Mahindra Group which has also presence in the hospitality sector and owns Mahindra Holidays, a network of holiday resorts, has also offered to convert some of them into temporary quarantine facilities, as authorities expect more cases to be detected as testing facilities increase.

“We need to create scores of temporary hospitals and we have a scarcity of ventilators. To help in the response of this unprecedented threat, we at the Mahindra Group will immediately begin work on how our manufacturing facilities can make ventilators," Mahindra said in a series of tweets.

He also said that the Mahindra Foundation, the group’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm, would create a fund to assist the hardest-hit stakeholders in the value chain, including small businesses and self-employed individuals.

“I will contribute 100% of my salary to it and will add more over the next few months," Mahindra tweeted.

He warned that it is highly likely that India is already in stage 3 of transmission of coronavirus.

In a similar initiative, Vedanta Resources Ltd chairman Anil Agarwal said on Sunday that he will commit ₹100 crore towards fighting the pandemic.

The fund will create three specific areas—livelihood of daily wage workers, employees and contract workers, preventive health care —and will provide timely help to communities in and around various plant locations of the company.

“The world is currently putting up a spirited fighting against Covid-19. It is critical that corporate houses should assist the government in the fight against this deadly virus... This fund is a first step on Vedanta’s behalf and we will increase the corpus if the need arises," said Agarwal.

As part of other measures, Vedanta will not cut salaries or fire any staff, including temporary workers during this crisis period. It has also decided to provide special, one-time insurance to cover Vedanta’s employees and their families against Covid-19.

Further, all mobile health vans in operational areas will aid in preventive healthcare and each business unit will contribute towards the livelihood of daily wage earners around plant locations like tea sellers and vegetable vendors.