Coronavirus: Govt turns to village self-help groups for mass production of face masks

The members of self help groups (SHGs) in villages across the country have resorted to producing face masks in a big way. More than 132 lakh face masks have already been produced by members of SHGs under the Ministry of Rural Development's National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), a rural development ministry press release said.

In a separate communication, Health Ministry released the manual of hand-made face masks, thereby giving such face masks an official stamp of approval. Prepared by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, the manual claims that a double layer of 100 per cent cotton cloth is about 70 per cent as effective as a surgical mask at capturing small particles (up to five times smaller than coronavirus).

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Over the last 10 days, members of 14,522 SHGs in 24 states covering 399 districts of the country  are actively involved in face mask production, it said.

While 21,028 members of 4,281 SHGs in five districts of Andhra Pradesh and 10,780 members of 1,927 SHGs in 32 districts of Tamil Nadu produced 25,41,440 and 26,01,735 masks, respectively, members of SHGs of various states such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and many North Eastern states are also involved in producing masks, the release said. Total 65,936 SHG members from 14,522 SHGs are involved and together they have manufactured 132 lakh masks.

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