Implement various measures to enhance the delivery of oxygen and build the competencies of human resources needed to prepare and tackle pandemics across the country.

In May 2021, when the second Covid wave hit India, the hospitals were overwhelmed and one of the biggest challenges was providing enough medical oxygen for the patients. With the exponential surge in India's coronavirus infections that swamped the health care system, the demand for oxygen rose

ten-fold in a matter of a few weeks. 

Although the country has sufficient capacities for oxygen production, lack of centralized coordination of oxygen supply and distribution and lack of adequate transport and storage capacity compounded the problem. 

As part of the preparedness for any pandemic in the future Indian experts suggest setting up more oxygen plants. These plants require maintenance and a well-coordinated delivery system. This requires human resources with the required competencies – domain, behavioural and functional. 

Innovative ways to bottle and transport oxygen will also have to be worked out so that uneven and unanticipated demand, especially from difficult geographies, can be managed effectively.

NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and DoPT’s Capacity Building Commission (CBC), are implementing various measures to build the competencies of human resources as well as innovative ways to bottle and transport oxygen. CEGIS is playing a treasury role for CBC and AIM to support this work. The CBC will test and deploy new systems for determining, testing, and building competencies of HR in government. This will leverage CEGIS's team's outreach with states and its own technical capabilities. 

CEGIS has already started programmatic efforts in India reaching out to state partners for improving their personnel management and capacity building practices. For instance, CEGIS works closely with the departments like Panchayati Raj and Rural Development (PRRD) & Women Development and Child Welfare in Telangana State to design solutions based on department needs, governance best-practices and has helped these departments roll out interventions with continuous adaptations based on ground-level feedback. 

CEGIS, therefore, is aligned to and suited to support CBC and AIM in its effort. 

The initiative is aimed at combating the current COVID-19 situation as well as ensuring long-term sustainability by addressing the shortage of skills and thereby bolstering future pandemic preparedness.

These include: 

● Piloting, validating and scaling up the use of LPG, CNG and other cylinders to bottle, transport and deliver gaseous oxygen. 

● Piloting, validating and scaling competency-based preparedness of human resources needed to prepare and tackle pandemic situations across the country. 

● Other science-based innovative efforts for pandemic preparedness as indicated by CBC.