MUMBAI: Foreign lender Standard Chartered on Tuesday committed Rs 20 crore towards community initiatives aimed at fighting COVID-19 in the country.
The initiatives from the bank and its global business services unit (which supports overseas operations through back-office support) will include setting up dedicated health care centres and putting oxygen generator plants, as per an official statement.
It can be noted that since the beginning of the pandemic, a slew of corporates have donated money for COVID relief and the commitments went up with the start of the ravaging second wave in April.
Working with multiple non-government organisations (NGO) partners and relevant governing authorities towards providing medical equipment, the bank targets to provide 9,000 PPE kits, 33 ventilators, 600 oxygen concentrators, 250 pulse oximeters and 9,000 N95 masks across the eight dedicated COVID care centres and seven healthcare facilities including government hospitals.
This assistance will be provided to establishments in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, it added.
"India is going through a tough phase with the second wave of COVID-19 leading to an unprecedented surge in cases. The entire nation is taking concerted efforts to tackle the pandemic," its cluster chief executive for India and South Asia, Zarin Daruwala said.
"These are difficult times for India. While the country is working tirelessly to mitigate the situation, it is also our responsibility as corporate citizens to play our part towards this effort of alleviating people's problems," its head of GBS Matthew Norris said.