How Amazon India, Startups & NGOs Are Importing Oxygen Concentrators & Helping India Beat COVID

Amazon India has joined hands with ACT Grants, Temasek Foundation, Pune Platform for COVID-19 Response (PPCR) and other partners to urgently airlift over 8,000 oxygen concentrators and 500 BiPAP machines from Singapore.

All the organisations are working closely with the Indian government to expedite the entry of these oxygen concentrators and BiPAP machines into the country, Amazon said in a blogpost.

These medical equipment will be donated to hospitals and public institutions to augment their capacity to help COVID-19 infected patients across multiple cities, it added.

The first of these consignments will land in Mumbai on late Sunday night (on April 25) and a majority of the shipping is expected to be completed by April 30, it said.

Representational Image/IANS

Amazon, in its blogpost, said it will bear the cost of airlifting these machines, procured through multiple funders including ACT Grants and PPCR, from Singapore to India, through Air India and other international carriers.

Additionally, Amazon will also manage the movement of these oxygen concentrators and other donations from the local airport to identified hospitals and institutions.

Additionally, Amazon India is also procuring over 1,500 oxygen concentrators and other critical medical equipment that will be donated to hospitals and medical facilities in partnership with multiple non-profits including Swasth, Concern India and impact organisations like ACT Grants and Sattva Consulting, the blogpost said.

Gurugram startups launch 'Mission Oxygen'

A clutch of founders of Gurugram-based startups have launched 'Mission Oxygen' to raise crowdfunding for importing oxygen concentrators.

The startup founders aim to raise a total Rs 5 crore to meet the demand of 3,000 concentrators. The group has already procured 500 concentrators from China which will be made available in hospitals by April 28 and another 500 are expected to be ordered by Saturday evening, a statement said.

Reuters

The initiative has been started by Democracy People Foundation and is being driven by Snehil Khanor of TrulyMadly, Mansha Kaur of Heart On My Sleeve, Hubhopper founder Gautam Raj Anand, Rahul Agarwal and Varun Agarwal of Designhill, Rahul Hari of Satvacart, Uday Anand of Mycrushfit, Gautam Ghai of Sourcefuse, Cuttlfish founder Shikher Gupta among others.

ITC, Delhivery, EaseMyTrip bring in oxygen concentrators

Indian conglomerate ITC announced today that it would airfreight oxygen cryogenic containers to help ease the crisis. ¡°ITC Limited has tied up with Linde India Ltd. to airfreight 24 cryogenic ISO containers of 20 tons each from Asian countries for use by them to transport medical oxygen across the country,¡± the company said in a statement.

Logistics unicorn Delhivery¡¯s chief executive officer Sahil Barua wrote on LinkedIn today that they are ¡®flying charters into India with oxygen concentrators and other essential supplies and can build more capacity on demand¡¯.

Online aggregator EaseMyTrip has allocated resources to import oxygen concentrators into India. The company said they were able to find legit suppliers to import 150 pieces of oxygen concentrators.