The Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra on Sunday said his company will immediately start working on how its manufacturing facilities can make ventilators along with offering Club Mahindra Holidays’ resorts as temporary care facilities even as it would help the government/army in setting up more such facilities. In a Twitter thread, Mahindra was suggesting necessary steps to be taken for the country to combat the deadly disease and reduce pressure on medical facilities as “going by various reports from epidemiologists, it is highly likely that India is already in Stage 3 of transmission,” he said.

Mahindra said that cases could rise exponentially with millions of casualties, putting a huge strain on medical infrastructure and hence “a lockdown over the next few weeks will help flatten the curve and moderate the peak pressure on medical care.” For small businesses and self-employed engaged with the Mahindra Group as part of its value chain and have been impacted the most, the Mahindra Foundation — the CSR arm will “create a fund” Mahindra said in order to assist them. The Mahindra chief also urged other businesses under the Mahindra Group to contribute to the fund. In his individual capacity, Mahindra said he will contribute his complete salary to the fund and “will add more over the next few months,” he said.

The Health Ministry had recently asked hospitals and medical education institutes to procure a sufficient number of ventilators and high flow oxygen masks, PTI reported. The Ministry of Pharma and Consumer Affairs cautioned sellers of charging an exorbitant price for masks, sanitizers, and other health-related logistic material and to facilitate their availability in all hospitals and to people at large, according to a statement. Earlier the government had put masks and sanitizers under Essential Commodities Act up to June 30 this year to regulate the availability of these products in markets.