Consortium of 3 start-ups employs 5,000 migrant labourers to produce low-cost equipment

A consortium of three start-ups from various parts of the country is employing more than 5,000 stranded migrant labourers to produce low-cost ventilators and large-scale

A consortium of three start-ups from various parts of the country is employing more than 5,000 stranded migrant labourers to produce low-cost ventilators and large-scale personal protective equipment (PPE) kits.

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Manufacturing over 40,000 kits a day from four factories -- two in Mumbai and two in Kolkata-- the three start-ups have partnered to provide PPE kits to 15 government and private entities across the country. Each kit includes protective gowns, shoe coverings, gloves, masks, goggles, face shield and a garbage bag for the disposal of items after use. All the elements, except goggles that are outsourced, are manufactured in the four sterilised factories.

Workers manufacturing the items have been provided with food, boarding and sanitary items.

“The PPE items have to be prepared in a sterilised set up. So it was necessary to provide the workers with hygienic conditions such as lodging and sanitisers. The workers follow social distancing norms in the factories and use masks and gloves,” said Hamza Shaikh, co-founder of Indobionics, a three-year-old medtech startup, incubated at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Bengaluru.

The consortium is also manufacturing low-cost ventilators that can be used in intensive care units (ICUs) across the country. While a high-end ICU ventilator can cost between ₹10 lakh and ₹15 lakh, these startups are building basic ICU ventilators at one-tenth the cost.

“The key was to cut down on research and development cost and sourcing material hyper locally. This helped save our costs. Our designers studied the designs of ventilators from open-source materials and we replicate the same with inexpensive and locally available material,” said Shaikh.