Supply 10,000 ventilators by May-end
New Delhi: India’s largest carmaker — Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) — on Friday said that it will complete its first order of 10,000 ventilators in collaboration with AgVA Healthcare, an existing approved manufacturer of ventilators, to the Central government by the end of May.
The first ventilator was manufactured on April 11, within 10 days of MSIL joining with AgVa Healthcare, a new and small start-up to scale-up ventilator production.
Speaking to ANI over the phone about the production of ventilators, MSIL Chairman R C Bhargava said: “We have been approached by the government to help them in ventilator manufacture in the fight against COVID-19.”
“We considered this and informed that we ourselves have no technology and no knowledge of ventilator making. The government wanted ventilator in April, May and June. We found a company AgVa, which is not even two years old and has very little production capacity. But it has a ventilator that was approved by the government,” Bhargava told media.
The MSIL signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the AgVa on March 30 and has produced 1,250 ventilators till date.
“Thus, we decided to join hands with this company and assist them in scaling up the production, thinking that together results could be more optimum. On March 30, we signed a kind of MoU with AgVa. That time there was no production at all. By April 11, we started our production and 1,250 ventilators have been produced till date,” he said.
Bhargava further said that daily production rate of ventilators is going up steadily and now 250-300 ventilators are being produced on a daily basis, which will soon be scaled up to 400 ventilators per day.
The MSIL is supplying ventilators to the government on a regular basis.
“The daily production rate is going up steadily. It has now reached 250-300 ventilators a day. By the end of this month, we are planning to hit 400. This means 10,000 ventilators in a month. We will complete the supply of 10,000 ventilators by the end of May. If the government wants more, then in June we will give them another 10,000,” he said.
