Companies step forward to strengthen Covid-relief efforts in India

Online travel major MakeMyTrip on Thursday announced a partnership with over 500 hotels across multiple cities offering safe and comfortable isolation rooms for patients affected with Covid-19.

These cities include Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Cochin, Lucknow, Kolkata, Pune, Jaipur, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Ludhiana, among others.

The rooms can be booked via the MakeMyTrip platform. Most of the hotels are also offering an all-meals inclusive rate, as hotel stay during isolation needs to be as self-contained as possible.

MakeMyTrip has also recently launched CoviRide (https://coviride.com/) -- an open, peer-to-peer community platform available on mobile web and desktop -- designed to help individuals, organisations and larger communities to seek and provide transport related assistance for Covid-19 infected patients.


It also helps the user locate a ride to a vaccination centre, drive through oxygen centres, to and from the hospital and for medical equipment transfer such as oxygen cylinders, concentrators, medicines, among others.

In addition, the MakeMyTrip foundation is also procuring 300 oxygen concentrators and the initial set has already been shared with Gurgaon Administration, Sir Ganga Ram City Hospital, Delhi and NGOs like Hemkunt Foundation and National Association for the Blind (NAB).

The foundation is also collaborating with RWAs across Delhi-NCR to assist in setting-up Covid-Care facilities at large residential areas by providing oxygen concentrators.


Maersk, an integrated container logistics company, has supported India's fight against the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic by facilitating the logistics and supply chain of medical relief.

The company has offered its ocean transportation service to institutions and organisations participating in medical relief at a nominal rate of $1 per container. All air freight shipments to India facilitated by Maersk are being done on a zero-profit basis.

More than 6,000 oxygen concentrators, 500 oxygen cylinders, 60 cryogenic oxygen tanks, and several medical supplies and ventilators have been transported into India by Maersk through its ocean and air freight solutions for various institutions and corporates contributing to medical relief activities.


The logistics activities undertaken by Maersk in order to support the medical aid into the country involve facilitating shipments coming in from countries such as Ireland, Finland, China, Germany, UAE, Qatar, Israel, South Africa and Singapore with more shipments from China, Turkey and Dammam still in progress.

Meanwhile, e-commerce major Amazon on Thursday announced that it is arranging Covid-19 health insurance cover, completely free of cost for registered sellers on the Amazon.in marketplace, through Acko General Insurance Limited (Acko).

Amazon.in will fully fund the premium cost for this group insurance policy that will be valid for one year after activation. Sellers with an active listing on Amazon.in between January 1 2020 and May 1 2021 can enrol themselves under the group policy to get coverage for Covid-19 hospitalisation and medical expenses up to Rs 50,000. In addition, the insurance policy will also cover domiciliary treatment expenses, as prescribed, up to the sum insured.


For the benefit of its sellers amidst the extremely challenging and trying times, Amazon.in recently also announced that the company will cover the Covid-19 vaccine costs for its eligible sellers and one dependent.A

In addition, valid from May 1, 2021 till May 31, 2021, Amazon.in introduced a host of measures to help marketplace sellers navigate the economic challenges caused by the pandemic including fee waivers, reimbursements, policy and performance relaxations for impacted sellers.

Amazon.in has also collaborated with Ketto which will enable SMBs to use the crowdfunding platform to raise funds to support their communities. Ketto will waive off the success fees for all such fundraisers hosted by Amazon.in marketplace sellers.


Further, Canon India is conducting a vaccination awareness drive and setting up support camps in its adopted villages -- Maheshwari (Haryana), Parivali (Mumbai), Kalyanpur (Kolkata) and Annadodi (Bengaluru), to help them register for vaccination.

The company is helping the villagers with the required information on vaccination, its benefits, after-effects, and procedures. It is also helping them to get registered on the government portals, in case walk-in registration is not available.

Canon India also aims to raise awareness in rural India and debunk all myths related to Covid-19 vaccinations and encourage them to book their slot.


Within a week of the awareness drive, the company has helped over 1,000 people with vaccination regarding procedures and get them registered on portals.

Not-for-profit foundation AI & Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK) has in collaboration with HealthTech startup Niramai and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru, launched XraySetu -- an AI-driven solution for the early intervention of Covid-19 cases across India.

The free-to-use platform extends an equitable AI technology to rural Indian doctors for doing a quick chest Xray interpretation over whatsapp chatbot.

Besides Covid-19, the platform can also ably detect 14 additional lung-related ailments including tuberculosis and pneumonia alongside others. XraySetu can further be used for both analogue as well as digital X-rays and work with low-resolution images sent via mobiles. XraySetu has successfully piloted more than 300 doctors in rural areas over the last 10 months. - IANS