Centre asks start-ups to come out with ready-to-serve tools to fight COVID

New Delhi: The Centre has urged start-ups and companies to come out with tools and gadgets that help to offset the shortage of oxygen and necessary tools that are ready to serve the needy when the country is witnessing the worse of the COVID pandemic's second wave.

The Ministry of Science & Technology DST has invited applications from the startups and companies that can develop and manufacture ready to serve tools and gadgets in the fight against the COVID.

"Supporting the development of devices like Oxygen Concentrators also brings with it huge opportunities in the development and manufacturing of several critical components that are being imported such as specialised valves, zeolite materials, oil-less and noiseless miniaturised compressors, gas sensors, which have wider applications in several sectors," said Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST.

The products for the devices like Oxygen Concentrators and so on are currently being imported for development and manufacturing. With this move, the ministry is considering Seed Support through DST supported network of TBIs.

According to the ministry, the startups who are found most promising will be provided with financial and mentoring support for scaling up their products/technologies to the next level and speeding up their processes, helping them reach the product deployment stage at the earliest.

NIDHI4COVID2.0, a new initiative under which the companies can apply, will fund eligible startups & companies registered in India offering promising solutions in the thrust areas of oxygen innovation, portable solution, relevant medical accessories, diagnostic, informatics, or any other solution that mitigate various challenges faced by country or society due to the severe impact of Covid-19.

The initiative is a special drive of the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India (GoI) for supporting indigenous solutions and innovative products to combat the crisis that the country is currently facing due to the pandemic.

This initiative has been built based on NSTEDB's past experience of implementing Centre for Augmenting WAR with Covid-19 Health Crisis (CAWACH) and also through special calls through National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations - Seed Support System (NIDHI - SSS) from Technology Business Incubators (TBI) to support Startups in 2020.

(with inputs from IANS)