The Empowered Group number 6, chaired by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant and formed by the government of India, held a series of meetings on the prevailing coronavirus crisis with international organisations, development partners, civil society organisations and industry associations.
As per a government release issued on Sunday, the committee held six meetings between March 30 and April 3 with all above-mentioned stakeholders.
The Empowered Group held 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.
“The UN in India has built a Joint Programme Response Plan and submitted it to NITI Aayog, defining their clear activities and deliverables in different sectors and States, where they are partnering with Union Ministries and State Governments,” the release read.
The committee also conducted deliberations with over 40 civil society organisations, development partners 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,” the release added.
Nearly 1 lakh NGOs/ CSOs registered with NITI Aayog have been urged to assist the government in identifying Covid-19 hotspots and for “deputing volunteers and caregivers to deliver services to the elderly, persons with disabilities, children, transgender persons, and other vulnerable groups”.
The NGOs and CSOs have also been directed 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.
Kant 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.
In deliberations with industry associations such as CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, NASSCOM and other representatives, the committee pressed for the need to produce more health equipment and PPEs.
“As many as 8 start-ups working in innovative healthcare 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 issues ranging of estimation needs for PPE, ventilators and medical equipment, retrofitting 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 lockdown operating procedures, etc,” the release read.
Industry representatives and the Group 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 apart from the ways to step up the relief and rehabilitation and information dissemination.
Last month, the government formed 10 Empowered Groups and a strategic task force comprising senior civil servants to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak.
The setting up of the groups and the task force, which together have 68 bureaucrats, is an attempt to forge a planning and implementation machinery that acts in concert to minimise the impact of the disease the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global pandemic.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday PM chaired a joint meeting of all Empowered Groups constituted for planning and ensuring implementation of Covid-19 response activities in the country.
