Ola has announced that it will help people gain access to oxygen concentrators.
As coronavirus cases continue to rise unabated in various parts of the country, the healthcare system is buckling under the increasing caseload. Resources such as oxygen cylinders and concentrators, hospital beds as well as medicines continue to be scarce in many parts of India. In this scenario, Ola has announced that it will help people gain access to oxygen concentrators. The ride-hailing company has partnered with donation platform GiveIndia to provide home delivery of 10,000 oxygen concentrators across the country, free of cost.
Announcing the same in a tweet, Ola Chief Executive Officer Bhavish Agarwal said, "We must come together and help our communities during these unprecedented times. Today we're announcing the O2forIndia initiative in partnership with @GiveIndia to provide free and easy access to oxygen concentrators to those in need. @foundation_ola #O2forIndia"
In addition to delivering the concentrators, Ola will also collect the machines back from the users once they have recovered and no longer require them.
"You can request for concentrators on the Ola app. Once validated, we will deliver it to your doorstep and pick it up back once you no longer need it," Mr Agarwal said.
The project will kick off in Bengaluru this week with a set of 500 concentrators, Mr Agarwal said, adding that it would soon be scaled to other parts of the country. "We hope this initiative brings much-needed support during these very difficult times and helps in mitigating the pain and the anxiety among those impacted," he further said.
Atul Satija, CEO and Founder 2.0 at GiveIndia said, "Through this initiative, we will provide oxygen concentrators to those recovering or isolating at home, right at their doorstep. We hope the easier access to oxygen will ease the distress of many patients." On Twitter, GiveIndia replied to Bhavish Agarwal's tweet and said, "It's the unprecedented times that pave for unprecedented deeds."
Apart from Ola, several other Indian start-ups have introduced COVID-19 specific services to help those battling the disease. For instance, food delivery application Zomato had launched an emergency delivery feature to help COVID-19 patients get food on a priority basis. Sharing the update, Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato, said, "Today, along with thousands of our restaurant partners, we just rolled out a "priority delivery for covid emergencies'' feature on the Zomato app. This feature will allow our customers to mark *This order is related to a COVID-19 emergency* option during checkout."
In the last 24 hours, India recorded 3.29 lakh fresh cases, taking the caseload to 2.29 crore. The death count has touched 2,49,992 with 3,876 more people dying of the infection in the last 24 hours.