Electronics manufacturing company ITI Limited and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are set to sign an agreement for the manufacturing of portable ventilators, a top official of the public sector firm said on Thursday.\
The company expects to start production of the ventilators in about two-and-a-half months from the date of signing of the memorandum of understanding and technology transfer of the ventilator technology to it from the DRDO.
"We are going to sign a memorandum of understanding with DRDO in the next 2-3 days for the transfer of technology for portable ventilators. We will get 80-90 per cent components locally and the rest will have to be imported. We expect to start manufacturing ventilators in the Bengaluru plant in two-and-a-half months from the date of technology transfer," ITI Chairman and Managing Director RM Agarwal told PTI. \
He said that the cost of ventilators will depend on the size of the order that the PSU will get.\ \
"The cost of ventilators that we will produce will be lower than units of the same quality. Being a PSU, we will not charge high margins. The final cost cannot be estimated at present because the cost of components for low volume production will be high and less for high volume production. Once DRDO transfers technology, we will start working on material cost and orders," Agarwal said.\ \
\ndia might need anywhere between 110,000-220,000 ventilators by May 15 in the worst-case scenario if coronavirus infection continues to spread. The number of ventilators available in the country is a maximum of 57,000 at present and come with a cost of Rs 5-15 lakh, according to a Brookings report.\ \
\Agarwal said that the portable ventilator will cost less than the ICU ventilators and the DRDO technology can be used for catering needs of armed forces in future.\ \
He said that ITI can expand manufacturing of portable ventilators at three other locations -Mankapur and Rae Bareily in Uttar Pradesh and Palakkad in Kerala.
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