While Congress, specifically its former president Rahul Gandhi, have a habit of vilifying the Ambanis, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Reliance Foundation has emerged as one of the largest donors as India Inc expands its relief efforts in blunting the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak.
A report published by the IANS says that Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Reliance Foundation are at the forefront of the efforts taken by India Inc to tackle the resurgent wave of the coronavirus outbreak. RIL has so far set up 1,875 hospital beds for free treatment of COVID-19 patients in Jamnagar and Mumbai. India’s first dedicated COVID treatment facility with 100-beds was set up in April 2020 at Seven Hills by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance group.
Besides, RIL has also set up various quarantine and isolation facilities across Mumbai, Surat, Lodhivali and other places. The Reliance Foundation also established an exclusive 10-bed dialysis centre at the Hindu Hriday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray Trauma Care Hospital, Mumbai.
In addition, RIL is also manufacturing and providing over 1,000 MT of oxygen free of cost, and catering to nearly 11 per cent of India’s medical oxygen needs. Nearly one in 10 ICU patients in India are getting oxygen from Reliance.
RIL has also transformed its facilities at Alok Inds to manufacture 1 lakh affordable PPE kits and masks per day to reduce dependence on imports.
The organisation has so far donated Rs 556 crores to the PM Cares Fund and other funds in the fight against the pandemic.
With its Mission Anna Seva, Reliance Group has provided over 5.5 crore meals—which include cooked meals, ready-to-eat food packets, food coupons, dry ration kits—across 80 districts, 18 states and one UT, and is slated to supply an additional 2 crore plus meals in May/June 2021.
RIL has also donated more than 81 lakh masks to frontline workers and communities across 19 states and two UTs. In addition to this, small multilingual booklets were published and distributed to create awareness about the pandemic and measures that need to be taken to stave off the infection.
About 5.5 lakh+ litres of free fuel was provided by the Reliance Foundation to over 14,000 notified ambulances and vehicles registered in COVID-19 services across 249 districts in 18 states. The Foundation operates nine MMUs in Shahdol, Nagothane, Dahanu, Jhajjar and Ghazipur providing medical services.
Other corporate groups join in to support India’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic
Besides Reliance, other organisations have also stepped up efforts to support India’s battle against the coronavirus outbreak. Wipro and Azim Premji Foundation committed Rs 1,125 crore, converted an IT Facility in Pune into a 450-bed intermediary care Covid Hospital and have provided food support to 32 crores so far.
IT behemoth Infosys announced Rs 200 crores, 2.4 million meals to around 1 million people, mostly the poor and the migrant labourers and distributed millions of masks, sanitisers for police, medical professionals and other frontline workers.
Vedanta donated Rs 201 crore, with Rs 101 crore to PM Cares Fund, and remaining for the welfare of frontline workers, daily wage earners, and employees of business partners. They launched the ‘Meals for All’ scheme, distributing free meals to lakhs of daily wage workers, while dry ration kits were given to thousands of daily wage workers, marginalised poor.
Pharma company Cipla committed Rs 25 crore, including Rs 9 crore to PM Cares Fund, supplied essentials, ration kits and meals to migrant workers. They served 1,44,000 meals to migrant workers and 1,32,700 masks, gloves etc distributed to more than 10,000 doctors and thousands of paramedical staff.