Hyderabad: Self Help Groups to produce masks in larger quantities

Hyderabad: Rural Development (RD) department of the state will produce about 15 lakh masks for the government personnel and for the people, considering the corona virus spread in the state.

Self Help Groups supervised by the RD department will be preparing the masks. Each of the 32 rural districts would prepare about 50,000 masks in a weeks' time.

The initiative has been taken as per the instructions of Union Rural Development department. The department has requested the state governments to use the SHGs for the fight against Corona.

In a letter addressed to the state Panchayat Raj and Rural Development department, the Centre informed that State Rural Livelihood Missions (SRLMs) which comprise the SHGs, are taking various initiatives for addressing the COVID-19 outbreak related issues.

The SRLMs may coordinate with Department of Health and local authorities and enhance efforts on production of masks, sanitizers, protective gears like gowns etc., to meet the demand from health department. So far about 1.32 crore masks have been produced by various SHGs across the country.

The SHGs have been put into the service for making masks due to the possibility of its shortage in the country. Crores of masks are required all over the country for the health workers, doctors, paramedical staff and security personnel who are working against the corona virus.

Officials of the RD department said that one mask could not be used for days together, the requirement of them has increased substantially. Each personnel of the health, medical and paramedical departments require a lot of masks.

They said that there were about 3.2 crore SHG members in the country who could produce crores of masks. In Telangana there are about 44 lakh SHG members. Out of them those trained in sewing could be used for stitching the masks.

Several thousands of SHG members have been trained in the Rural Self Employment Training centre of the state in sewing. They could produce the masks required in the state.

The District Rural Development Agency officials have been procuring the required cloth from the weavers' societies and supplying it to the SHG's for making masks. Efforts are on to produce masks at lesser cost.

Until now, the masks have been produced only by the companies which are engaged in medical equipment production. Their production is limited and it would not be enough in this time of crisis.

At the same time the masks being produced by the private companies are costly. Government is trying to produce them at a lesser cost so that the expenditure burden in this regard could be reduced.