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New Delhi : Empowered Group 6, constituted on March 29, 2020, by Government of India (GoI) to co-ordinate with Private Sector, NGOs, and International Organisations (IOs) for COVID-19-related Response Activities, has held six meetings between March 30, 2020, and April 3, 2020, with industry associations, IOs, and CSOs about their contribution to the response, their plans for the coming weeks, and the issues facing them, and their expectations from the government.
Empowered Group number 6 chaired by Amitabh Kant, CEO NITI Aayog, is addressing issues pertaining to identification of problems, effective solutions and formulation of plans with three groups of stakeholders : The UN agencies, World Bank, Asian Development Bank; Civil Society Organisations and development partners; and Industry associations – CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, NASSCOM.
The members of the Empowered Committee include Dr Vijayaraghavan, PSA, Kamal Kishore (Member, NDMA); Sandeep Mohan Bhatnagar (Member, CBIC); Anil Malik (AS, MHA); Vikram Doraiswami, (AS, MEA); P. Harish (AS, MEA); Gopal Baglay (JS, PMO); Aishvarya Singh (DS, PMO); Tina Soni (DS, Cabinet Secretariat); and the work of EG6 is serviced by Sanyukta Samaddar (Adviser, SDG, NITI Aayog).
All 3 groups have proactively pointed out the areas where they need support which the government is following up. They have also been put in touch with other EGs for faster and more effective response and coordination.
EG 6 had detailed meetings with UN Resident Coordinator for India, and country heads of WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNDP, ILO, UN Women, UN-Habitat, FAO, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank. Following the discussions on these IO’s providing technical support in monitoring and surveillance systems, strengthening health and nutritional services, capacity building, financial resources and critical equipment support, etc, the UN in India has built a Joint Programme Response Plan and submitted to NITI Aayog, defining their clear activities and deliverables in different sectors and States, where they are partnering with Union Ministries and State Governments.
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and development partners: EG 6 conducted detailed deliberations with 40 plus prominent CSOs and NGOs working in different parts of the country and with different communities. Several challenges and issues raised by these CSOs were addressed by the EG6 to facilitate their working in the field during this crisis.
CEO, NITI Aayog, has written to over 92,000 NGOs/ CSOs registered on the Darpan portal of NITI Aayog, appealing them to assist the government in identifying hotspots and deputing volunteers and care givers to deliver services to the elderly, persons with disabilities, children, transgender persons, and other vulnerable groups; to create awareness about prevention, social distancing, isolation, and combating stigma; to provide shelter to homeless, daily wage workers, and urban poor families; set up community kitchens for migrants; services.Further, the CEO has also written to all Chief Secretaries urging them to instruct the local administration at the district level to utilise the physical and human resources made available by NGOs and CSOs.
Industry Associations : The committee has opened up cross-sectoral dialogue within the private sector and start ups to ensure collaboration among them to produce health equipment and PPEs. As many as 8 Start-Ups working in innovative health care solutions, 12 top industry leaders from CII, 6 CEOs from FICCI industry partners, 14 CEOs of top tech-based companies from NASSCOM, participated and deliberated on all issuues ranging from needs for PPE, ventilators and medical equipment, retrofiting domestic production lines to meet demand, supply chain management issues, innovative technology-led solutions, issues of certification, GST, import duties on components, issues of procurement, training, post lock-down operating procedures, etc.
The start-ups, namely, AgVa, Biodesign Innovation Lab, Kaeaenaat, Qure AIDrona Maps, mFine, MicroGo, Staqu, working on innovative ventilator design, testing tools, and tracking solutions have been contacted separately to understand their scale and possible contributions.
Industry Representatives and the EG 6 deliberated in detail and resolved several challenges on critical issues of health-care intervention pertaining to ramping up production and procurement of ventilators, PPEs, testing kits, in collaboration with several other EGs; apart from ways to step up the relief and rehabilitation and information dissemination.