Covid-19: Domestic firms diversify to ramp up availability of PPE kits

With India facing an acute shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) kits, several domestic firms, starting from toymakers to apparel manufacturers, have now decided to manufacture them. Apart from their scanty supply, the PPE kits that are imported from China are allegedly of poor quality and unable to provide effective protection to frontline heath and sanitation workers.

Bengaluru-based medical equipment company Caremont, which was until now manufacturing gloves and disposable gowns, is now starting to manufacture PPE gear. For this, the company is procuring polypropylene non-woven fabric from mills in Coimbatore and Tirupur area. Caremont is manufacturing 2,000 such kits, with goggles and gloves that are sourced from vendors, and supplying them to around 80 hospitals across Karnataka.

“Shipment is a challenge during this lockdown with bus transport and trains not running, but we will expand to Tamil Nadu and Telangana once things are up and running,” says Ankit Kedia, founder of Caremont. Prior to starting this firm, Kedia was associated with Manjushree Technopack, a company that makes packaging material, as an executive director.

These kits go through ethylene oxide sterilisation before being dispatched to various locations from the warehouses. The company is currently looking at producing quality PPE kits and might ramp up manufacturing depending on the demand post lockdown.

According to HLL Lifecare, a nodal government-owned body that has been tasked to procure PPE kits, the country immediately needs 10 million PPE kits, including N-95 masks.

Hyderabad-based toys manufacturer Pals Plush is now using its sewing machines, which were earlier used to stitch soft toys, to manufacture PPE suits. It has deployed around 320 employees to produce 2,000 PPE kits daily.

“It is a health emergency situation, so we wanted to utilise our units to help those who are in the frontline. We are currently manufacturing 2,000 kits per day and looking at ramping up the capacity to 3,000 (kits per day) starting from next week per day from next week,” said a company spokesperson.

These kits are sent to the state government’s central drug store from where it goes to hospitals across the state.

Noida-based Hula Global, which is an apparel manufacturing firm, is now manufacturing and distributing medical and PPE gears under its standalone brand, Ultra. It is manufacturing about 50,000 kits per week with material that has been approved by the South India Textile Research Association.

The company is already working on opening up an additional manufacturing plant to ramp up production. “Our team is working on creating a category wise standardisation for coveralls so that we don't follow the one size fits all criteria,” said Karan Bose, Managing Director, Hula Global.