By: Shilpa Sharma
TECH giant Google on Thursday (17) announced a grant of $15.5 million (£11.1m) to support procurement and installation of about 80 oxygen generation plants in India.
Its philanthropic arm, Google.org will carry out the project in India, especially in rural areas in partnership with various organisations.
Google has identified GiveIndia, PATH, Apollo Medskills and ARMMAN as delivery intermediaries for the programme.
The company will give $12.5m (£8.9m) to GiveIndia and about $2.5m (£1.8m) to PATH.
It will also finance efforts of Apollo Medskills to upskill 20,000 frontline health workers through specialised training in Covid-19 management.
Google.org will give $500,000 (£358,499) in grant to ARMMAN to train 180,000 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and 40,000 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) in 15 Indian states.
“As India slowly emerges from the crisis of the past few months, it’s been humbling and inspiring to see individuals, communities, institutions, and governments work together to manage the impact on a scale we haven’t experienced before,” Google India country head and vice president Sanjay Gupta said.
The company is broadening its support efforts to help strengthen India’s healthcare infrastructure and workforce — especially in rural areas, he said.
These new commitments build on the $18m (£12.9m) funding announced by Google in April.
These included $2.6m (£1.8m) grant to GiveIndia for cash assistance to families hit by the crisis, and medical supplies to UNICEF.
Besides, Google employees worldwide collectively donated $7m (£5m) to organisations supporting high-risk and marginalised communities.
Over the last five years, Google.org has committed grants worth $57m (£40.8m) in India.
Separately, the tech company is trying to enable people offering healthcare services to use Google Play as a platform.
Last month, the government released new guidelines for the integration of CoWIN with third-party applications, easing the way for such apps to offer vaccine bookings.
CoWIN is a cloud-based IT solution for planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of Covid-19 vaccination in India.
India has so far administered over 265 million jabs to eligible beneficiaries.
