Our Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

The COVID-19 outbreak has thrown the world into an unprecedented and massive health and humanitarian crisis. We did our bit to help respond to the pandemic. 

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On April 1, 2020, Azim Premji Foundation and Wipro committed Rs 1,125 crore to contribute towards a nation-wide response to the challenges posed by COVID-19. In June 2021, the Foundation made an additional commitment of Rs 1,000 crore to help India’s vaccination program.

This response to the pandemic has an immediate and short-to-mid-term time-frame, in each of which we are responding to the two inextricably tied dimensions of the crisis — healthcare and humanitarian. Our immediate efforts have focused on reducing the human impact of the unfolding crises, while also supporting the healthcare system to respond to it. 

With 1700 members of our own organization, over 55,000 team members of around 500 partners, over 10,000 public school teachers that we work with and about 2500 alumni of our University, along with Wipro’s technical expertise and distribution reach, we have been able to extend support across over 500 districts in 26 states and 3 union territories.

Our integrated healthcare support has built capacity and enabled operations to serve over 15 crore people in more than 100 districts in some of the most deeply disadvantaged regions of the country. This has included:

  • On-the-ground pandemic surveillance, monitoring, awareness building and community mobilization across more than 200 blocks, including people capacity development, operations, and relevant equipment.
  • Public healthcare system capacity creation including over 10,000 oxygenated beds, 1000 ICU beds, 100 testing centres with approximately 80,000 per day testing capacity (including automated high throughput systems) and augmented facilities for treatment and prevention.
  • Additionally, support to around 45 public-spirited hospitals serving the most vulnerable populations, with similar equipment, consumables, manpower and operating expenditure.

Our humanitarian support (including equivalent of almost 54 crore meals) reached over 1.3 crore people across 27 states and 3 union territories and has helped regenerate livelihoods of an additional 83 lakh people. Livelihood regeneration support includes inputs for agriculture and allied activities, as well as access to welfare entitlements for the most vulnerable populations of drought-prone regions of the country.

The Foundation is working with the public system to enhance the speed of India’s vaccination program – by adding capacity in the remotest parts of the country at the level of the Primary Healthcare Centre, as well as working on the ground for community education and mobilization. This effort is aimed to cover 3000 – 5000 PHCs, serving between 10 – 17 crore people.

Consolidated summary report 

Read a detailed summary of our work in response to COVID-19 for the period March 2020 to June 2021

Download Report