Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is currently producing over 11 per cent of India’s medical-grade liquid oxygen, the highest by a single company at a single location. The conglomerate is providing this ‘Pran Vayu’ – oxygen – to one out of every 10 Covid patient in India free of cost.
Starting from oxygen to employee care, Reliance Foundation, starting from last year, launched five missions to fight the covid-19 pandemic, along with a commitment to go carbon free. These include mission oxygen, mission Covid infra, mission anna seva, mission employee care and mission vaccine suraksha.
“Last year, when humanity was struck with the worst crisis in over a 100 years, we did our best to help in whichever way we could, and did so urgently,” said Nita Ambani, chairperson and founder of the Reliance Foundation at the 44th RIL Annual General Meetting (AGM).
Talking about RIL’s effort to provide medical oxygen, she said, “As you know, India faced an acute shortage of oxygen as soon as COVID cases began to surge earlier this year. Reliance swung into action on a war footing immediately. Traditionally, we have never produced medical grade liquid oxygen. Yet when the need arose, we repurposed our Jamnagar refinery within days, within two weeks, we ramped up production to a massive 1100 Metric Tonnes per day.”
“In the oxygen supply chain, we have addressed India’s serious bottleneck of tankers. Reliance procured 100 new medical-grade oxygen tankers both from within India and other parts of the world, like Germany, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, Belgium, Thailand, Indonesia, and put them into service within two weeks,” said Nita Ambani.
Talking about the Covid care infrastructure, she added, “Last year, within days of the coronavirus outbreak, we set up India’s first dedicated 250 bedded COVID facility in Mumbai. By the time the second wave hit us, we had set up additional 875 beds for COVID care in Mumbai alone. Across India, we created a total capacity of over 2000 beds for COVID care, all equipped to provide uninterrupted oxygen supply and totally free-of-cost treatment.”
RIL launched a Covid testing lab with a capacity of over 15,000 tests per day.
In the early days of the lockdown, RIL launched Mission Anna Seva, a commitment to feed the needy. “Today, this commitment has taken the form of the largest meal distribution programme undertaken by a corporate foundation anywhere in the world. We have so far provided more than 7.5 crore free meals to marginalised communities, daily-wage earners, and frontline workers across the country,” said Nita Ambani.
On Mission Employee Care, she said, “is an expression of our care and concern for the most precious members of our extended family, our Reliance Family.
“Reliance, we made sure that no jobs, no salaries, no bonuses were cut due to COVID. All medical expenses were pai fully, and fully paid leaves were granted. It breaks our hearts that in spite of our best efforts, we lost some precious members of our Reliance Family to the pandemic. Nothing can fill the void they have left in our minds and hearts,” said Nita Ambani.
Towards this end, Reliance will continue to pay the deceased employee’s salary to the family for the next five years, finance their children’s education in India till graduation, and ensure continuity of medical coverage to the family for life.
Additionally, a lump-sum amount of Rs 10 lakh will be provided to families of employees who succumbed to Covid-19.
“Our fifth and most critical mission is ‘Mission Vaccine Suraksha’. Mass Vaccination is India’s topmost and urgent priority now. It is the most reliable way out of this crisis. And to achieve this in the shortest possible time, the Government of India has recently allowed private enterprises and hospitals to join the effort. To help speed up the vaccination drive, we have set up 116 vaccinations centres in 109 cities across the country,” added Nita Ambani.
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