Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray warns of third Covid-19 wave

As India reels under the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday warned of an impending third wave.

Thackeray, who heads the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, asked top Indian corporates and industrialists to be prepared at this stage itself and appealed for all possible assistance to the state government in increasing bed facilities, testing centers and speeding up vaccinations in fight against Covid-19.

The Chief Minister said this during an online meeting with industrialists and industry leaders like Niranjan Hiranandani, Uday Kotak, Deepak Mukhi, Harsh Goenka, Naushad Forbes, Sulajja Firodia, Samir Somaiya, S N Subrahmanyan, Salil Parekh, Neel Raheja, Sanjeev Bajaj, Anant Goenka, Baba Kalyani, Anant Singhania, B Thiagarajan, Banamali Agarwal, Ashwin Yardi, Sunil Mathur, Sanjeev Singh, Ashish Agarwal and representatives of FICCI, CII and other industry bodies. The meet saw representation from top groups like Tata, Reliance, L&T, Infosys, JSW, Mahindra & Mahindra, Godrej, Blue Star, Kinetic Engineering, among others.

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Thackeray also urged the business community to think about a Covid-appropriate workspace in the future.

“All steps must be taken to prevent its adverse impact on the industry and the economy due to unavoidable pandemic lockdowns or stringent norms. We have to start preparing for the third wave,” he said.

“Presently, the state is in dire need of oxygen, and currently, the entire production is being utilized for medical purposes. Given the number of new patients coming up daily, we need a lot more oxygen for which the industries can help out,” Thackeray said during the meeting.

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Principal Secretary (Health) Dr. Pradeep Vyas said that the state is conducting 3 lakh tests per million population. Even though the death rate is low, the infections are very high, he said.

He requested the industries to start setting up small oxygen plants in their premises to absorb natural oxygen based on new technologies and provide the entire production for medical purposes.

Industry Minister Subhash Desai, Health Minister Rajesh Tope, Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte and other top officials were also present during the meet.