COVID-19: To meet shortage, masks and gloves are being manufactured at Bengal’s Tantuja factory

The West Bengal government has started manufacturing personal protective equipment (PPE), gloves and masks for use in the hospitals which are treating Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) patients.

The protective equipment are being manufactured by workers of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector in the state. The step has been taken to meet the shortage of these items in various hospitals of the state on an urgent basis. The state is currently facing a shortage of PPEs, masks and gloves as it has to rely on organisations of other states for the supply of these items.

West Bengal State Handloom Weavers’ Co-operative Society, which is known by the brand name Tantuja, is currently producing 10,000 PPEs daily but it plans to increase the production to 20,000 pieces daily.

Tantuja is also manufacturing micro-fibre that is used for making PPEs so that it does not have to depend on buying the micro-fibre sheets from other states. Currently, Tantuja is manufacturing 50,000 metres of the micro-fibre sheet and plans to increase the production to one lakh metre of sheet daily.

The micro-fibre sheets are currently being manufactured at two production units in Sankrail in Howrah. Five more units will be set up there shortly.

The government has decided to increase the number of stitching units too so that the production of PPEs can be increased further. Three more stitching units will be set up in North 24 Parganas. The ones that are operating at present are located in Metiabruz in Kolkata.

The production units in Sankrail have already manufactured around seven lakh different types of masks and over 65,000 litres of hand sanitizers over the last 15 days.

The protective equipment are being manufactured on an emergency basis to meet their shortage in hospitals as soon as possible.