By IANSlife Features
New Delhi, March 30 (IANSlife) As the global citizens community fights the coronavirus outbreak, from FMCGs to auto and ancillary companies, the corporate community has come forward to pledge their support to the cause in the form of funds, food, equipment distribution and various social activities on the ground and online.
RB recently launched the “RB Fight for Access Fund” to improve access to health, hygiene and nutrition for all.
As part of this fund, an additional £32 million has been mobilized to address the urgent collective fight against the spread of COVID-19 by breaking the chain of this fast-spreading infection. The RB Fight for Access Fund will benefit from 50% funding from corporate, matched by funding from each of the three business units, Hygiene, Health & Nutrition.
Recognizing that awareness and availability are the biggest challenges in the current scenarios, RB India, commenced various activities utilizing the fund, focusing on consumers engagements to share information and product distribution across major markets. The activities will include deploying the fund for distributing 10 million units of Dettol Soap to the most vulnerable within India.
Partnership with community players like Bikers for Good launched #HandWashCorona, a public health initiative amidst the raging spread of COVID-19. Under this campaign, volunteers rode within the streets of New Delhi-NCR and distributed 9 lakh soaps to families in weaker/unprivileged communities and donating critical protection equipment – 3.5 million N95 masks with a focus on pharmacists and health care workers.
Laxman Narasimhan, RB’s Global CEO said, “We have a 200 year history of making a material difference to the lives of our consumers. Our brands have a critical role to play in promoting hygiene and health in the fight against the current COVID-19 pandemic. I have been witness to heroic efforts across the company to live our Purpose and our Fight. I am in awe of the ‘can do’ attitude across the RB organization and the relentless pursuit by my colleagues to make the world cleaner and healthier.
Under this initiative, in India, we will donate 10 million bars of Dettol soap to the most vulnerable and 3.5 million N95 (medical grade) masks to frontline health
workers.”
“We will continue to partner with the government on driving behaviour change and supporting the great partnership we have developed through the Dettol BSI campaign, ” he added.
In the automotive sector, Chennai-based TVS Motor Company, manufacturer of two-wheelers and three-wheelers and die-caster Sundaram-Clayton Ltd have announced spending of Rs 30 crore to support the nationwide efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19.
“This is an unprecedented crisis that requires all of us to cooperate and support each other as a nation,” said Mr. Venu Srinivasan, Chairman, TVS Motor Company . “Our priority is to help the government efforts to contain and mitigate the effects of this pandemic. We will continue to do what we can for the community and people, as we have done in our 100-year history.”
The funding will come through Srinivasan Services Trust (SST), the social arm of TVS Motor Company and Sundaram-Clayton Ltd. and will include measures ranging from manufacturing and supplying supportive equipment such as masks, to providing cooked meals to those in the frontline – from healthcare workers to police officers.
The first phase of the program is underway and SST has supplied 10 tractors fitted with disinfectant spray along with about 30 personnel to the Hosur Municipal Corporation in Tamil Nadu, and municipalities in Krishnagiri and Mysuru. The streets and villages in and around these towns are being sprayed with disinfectant as an ongoing process. SST will also manufacture and distribute 1 million face masks to those delivering essential services from healthcare to food supplies.
TVS Motor Company and SCL are using canteen kitchens in Hosur, Padi (Chennai) and Mysuru to make cooked food which is being distributed to police, healthcare workers and essential services workers in and around Hosur, Chennai and Mysuru. In Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, the company is distributing daily, dry ration kits to daily wage workers who have been displaced, and also to villagers who need food supplies.
In addition, they are evaluating collaborations with 3D printing companies to make ventilators that will help support hospitals which lack the necessary life support systems to cope with patient care for COVID-19 victims.
TVS Motor Company and Sundaram-Clayton Ltd. have shut all offices and manufacturing facilities as per the guidelines.
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