To quickly enhance its preparedness for COVID-19, the Indian government is relaxing criteria for mass manufacture of ventilators and is planning to airlift critical components from select suppliers. Industry sources tell CNBC Tv18 that four days ago in a meeting with ventilator manufacturers the government has also promised logistics support. The meeting was chaired by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar.
While the focus is on local sourcing of components and redesign parts that can be manufactured at automobile plants, manufacturers are facing an immediate shortage of few critical components, which were earlier imported.
Industry sources in the know say the government is planning to airlift critical ventilator components from Shanghai in China, which is one of the key component suppliers to Indian ventilator manufacturers. A special flight to airlift components will be arranged in 2-4 days and manufacturers have to ask to co-ordinate with component vendors and arrange supplies in Shanghai.
Sources say the government is in touch with other embassies like Germany as well to co-ordinate essential supplies as and when the need arises.
Apart from logistics support, the government has fast-tracked all approval processes and also relaxed the criteria required to be fulfilled to secure a government order. Manufacturers having an installed base of 100 ventilators and 2 years of operations will be eligible to secure orders.
Defence Research and Development Organisation has identified the minimum technical specifications needed for ventilators for COVID-19 patients and it was released on the Ministry of Health website.
As of now, two consortiums have secured government orders for 40,000 ventilators: Bharat Electronic Ltd along with Mysuru based Skanray Technologies has received the order to manufacture 30,000 ventilators. The second order for 10,000 ventilators has been given to the consortium of Maruti Suzuki and Noida based ventilator maker AgVa Healthcare.
Vishwaprasad Alva, founder, and MD of Skanray said, “The meeting with Piyush Goyal was very fruitful. Now the orders are progressing at fast track, not like earlier tenders that took too long to process. We don’t have much time.”
AgVa says 30,000 ventilator order from government of India has been put on government-owned BEL, its consortium partner, to ease billing and administrative hurdles.
To expand manufacturing bases, the government has asked auto manufacturers to step in and experts say established ventilator makers will giving designs and validation.
Skanray is in the process of clinically validating the respirator that Mahindra and Mahindra have designed and says it can be used to sustain patients in an extreme emergency.
The government has also promised to assist these smaller manufacturers to secure finance by making advance payments. Prof Diwakar Vaish, Founder of AgVa Healthcare said, “We have received a written commitment from government that 25 percent of our order value will be paid in advance. This will be a huge help in working capital.” Skanray has received a similar advance payment commitment.
AgVa that has partnered with Maruti Suzuki is also in talks with government-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd for a similar tie-up. “Our first line in the facility that Maruti is arranging may start manufacturing in 1-2 days. When BHEL also comes on board, we plan to produce 900 ventilators in a single day in 3 parallel lines.” Our ventilators designs are already approved and validated.
Two other ventilator makers that CNBC-TV18 spoke to are in conversation with the government to get their designs and expansion plans approved.
India currently has an estimated 40,000-50,000 ventilators. The government has earmarked 14000 ventilators for COVID-19 patient care, but experts say if the disease spread rapidly and peaks the country may need nearly a lakh ventilators to support critical patients. Till COVID-19-19 hit, the country was largely importing ventilators and those manufacturing were assembling the components with more than 40 percent imported parts.
First Published: Apr 1, 2020 7:48 PM IST
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