The capacity and production of PPE Coveralls for COVID-19 touched a peak of 5 lakh per day in mid May 2020. From zero manufacturers in March 2020, 1100 indigenous manufacturers of PPE kits have been developed by the Government till date, most of them being from MSME sector. Since the country had sufficient raw materials and production capacity of PPE Coveralls to meet the domestic demand, textile industry sought permission to export surplus PPE suits. After considering demand from the industry, the ban on export was lifted by the Government vide its Notification dated 25.8.2020 issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT). As on 13.9.2020, a total of 1.42 crore PPE kits have been supplied to M/s HLL Lifecare Ltd. – the procurement arm of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare(MoHFW) for use of health professionals in government hospitals. The manufacturers supplying PPE Coveralls to MoHFW were from all textiles clusters spread across the country which included Bengaluru, Tirupur, Surat, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, etc. Apart from supply to MoHFW more than 1 crore PPE Coveralls have been supplied by indigenous manufacturers to State Governments and private hospitals.
In order to streamline supply chain, remove bottlenecks and maintain a steady supply of PPEs in the country, a centralized Emergency Control Room was established in the Ministry working round the clock with the 200 Nodal Officers appointed across the value chain to monitor/ facilitate from supply of raw material to the units, testing and certification, to delivery of final product to its destination during lockdown period. The supply-demand scenario is also closely monitored by the Government during the COVID-19.
The details of 11 Laboratories developed for testing of PPE Coveralls required for protection from COVID-19 is at Annexure-I.
The procedure for issue of Unique Certification Code for each passed prototype sample of the PPE Coveralls has been issued by the Government vide letter dated 6.4.2020 (Annexure-II). Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has issued the Indian Standards IS: 9473 for N-95/ FFP2 masks in June 2020. The procedure of testing and certification by the approved Laboratories of Ministry of Textiles has now been migrated to Bureau of Indian Standard licensing.
This information was given in a written reply by the Union Minister of Textiles, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani in Lok Sabha today.
