Tag: oxygen concentrators

Ola Foundation and GiveIndia partner to provide free oxygen concentrators

Ola Foundation announced a partnership with GiveIndia to provide consumers with oxygen concentrators for free through the Ola App. The service will start rolling out in Bengaluru from this week with an initial set of 500 oxygen concentrators. Ola and GiveIndia will scale it up across the country with upto 10,000 concentrators in the coming weeks. 

Consumers will be able to log into the Ola app and request for oxygen concentrators by providing a few basic details. Once submitted, the request will be validated and Ola will then pick up the concentrators via one of its cabs with a specially trained driver and bring it to the consumer’s doorstep. Once the patient has gotten better and no longer requires the concentrator, Ola will pick the device back up and return it to GiveIndia to get it ready for the next patient who needs it. This entire experience will be seamless and the oxygen concentrator, as well as the doorstep delivery and pickup, will be completely free for consumers. 

“We must come together and help our communities during these unprecedented times.” said Bhavesh Aggarwal, Chairman and Group CEO at Ola. Atul Satija, CEO and Founder 2.0 at GiveIndia, the initiative will provide oxygen concentrators to those recovering or isolating at home, right at their doorsteps. “We hope the easier access to oxygen will ease the distress of many patients.”

 

Government reduces IGST on import of oxygen concentrators for personal use to 12 percent

Amid the acute shortage of medical oxygen in several parts of the country due to surge in COVID cases, the Finance Ministry on Saturday reduced the Integrated Goods and Service Tax (IGST) rate on the import of the oxygen concentrators for personal use from 28 percent to 12 percent. This rate will be applicable till June end.

As per the Ministry of Finance notification, IGST on import of oxygen concentrators for personal use has been reduced from 28 percent to 12 percent to bring IGST rate on such personal import at par with commercial import of the same. This reduced IGST rate for imports of concentrators for personal use shall be applicable upto June 30, 2021. Meanwhile, the government revised the Foreign Trade Policy, 2015-2020 and permitted the import of oxygen concentrators for personal use amid a massive surge in COVID cases in the country.

An official press release from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry stated that the oxygen concentrators have been added to the list of exempted categories, where custom clearance is sought as “gifts”.  These oxygen concentrators can be procured through post, courier or e-commerce portals. The exemption for oxygen concentrators is allowed till July 31, 2021 for personal use according to notification of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade.

India to import over 10,000 oxygen concentrators

With India suffering a major crisis of oxygen supply amid the ranging COVID-19 pandemic, the central government has decided to import oxygen concentrators from abroad. As per government sources, an order of ten thousand oxygen concentrators has been placed and oxygen concentrators import will start from next week from United States America (USA). Operating air bubble with the USA, the next flight of Air India from San Francisco to Delhi will carry a large number of oxygen concentrators to India.