User-friendly personal protective equipments (PPEs) approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) are expected to hit the market within a month as the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) has issued licence to five MSMEs for commercial production of the safety gears.
NRDC, an undertaking of Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in the Ministry of Science and Technology, has partnered with the Intellectual Property Facilitation Cell of Directorate General Quality Assurance (Naval), Ministry of Defence, to protect the IP.
“The commercial production of user-friendly PPE named NavRakshak will begin within a month. The concept of the breath-easy equipment with no mend or lamination was developed by a naval doctor,” said H. Purushotham, Chairman and Managing Director, NRDC.
The know-how has been provided to Greenfield Vintrade Private Limited (Kolkata), Vaishnavi Global Private Limited (Mumbai), Bharat Silks (Bengaluru), Sure Safety (India) Limited (Vadodara) and Swaps Couture (Mumbai). They will produce more than 10 million PPEs per annum.
“The PPE could be provided at ₹450 to ₹500 per piece as the technology and quality of fabric is of superior quality and they need no sealing around the seam of the suit, ruling out the import of costly sealing machines and tapes. The PPE fabric does not require lamination with polymer or plastic. This makes the PPE permeate heat and moisture from the skin of the user,” explained Dr. Purushotham.
Hoping a good scope for PPE manufacturers, he said as per the NITI Aayog, the PPE market in the country has grown from almost zero to ₹10,000 crore in just two months.
The know-how of manufacturing the ‘NavRakshak’ PPE has been developed at the Innovation Cell of the Institute of Naval Medicine, INHS Asvini Hospital. The PPE has been tested and certified at the INMAS, DRDO, among the nine NABL accredited labs authorised by Ministry of Textile in India for PPE prototype sample testing as per the ISO standards and COVID protocols.
