Inventories lying idle with manufacturers, shortage of trained staff are some of the reasons for the shortfall, despite the unprecedented surge in ventilators being made in India last year
A medical staff checks on a ventilator of an intensive care unit at a newly inaugurated hospital by the Tamil Nadu state to fight against the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Chennai.
Image: Arun SANKAR / AFP
A little more than a year after India went into its first Covid-19 lockdown in March last year, the country is witnessing its second wave of the pandemic, with an increasing number of cities imposing night curfews, and restrictions on business and movement. Maharashtra, the worst affected state in both the pandemic waves, is currently under night curfews, weekend lockdowns, and severe restrictions on business activities.
As the surge in cases threatens to overwhelm medical infrastructure—hospital beds are rapidly filling up, and ventilators are already in short supply in multiple Covid-19 hotspots—there is a sense of déjà vu. But, there are questions too.
When the number of Covid-19 patients started swelling in March, the government called for Indian companies to step up to the challenge, and manufacture ventilators on a war footing. Picking up the gauntlet was a bunch of established ventilator manufacturers and startups, who rapidly ramped up production capacity, invented entirely new machines, and collaborated with other industry players in unprecedented ways.
By end March, the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) had reached out to seven of its 10 ventilator manufacturing members, who had confirmed that the total production capacity at that time was between 5,500 and 5,750 units per month. Rajiv Nath, forum coordinator, AiMeD, had said in a press note that the aim was to produce 50,000 ventilators per month by May.
The central government stepped in to order ventilators in bulk from home-grown manufacturers: By June, Rs 2,000 crore had been allocated for supplying 50,000 ‘Made in India’ ventilators to government-run Covid-19 hospitals across the country through the PM Cares Fund. While 30,000 ventilators were being manufactured by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), the remaining 20,000 ventilators were being made by AgVa Healthcare (10,000), AMTZ Basic (5,650), AMTZ High End (4,000) and Allied Medical (350), respectively.