At a recent meeting of senior civil society and philanthropic leaders Rishad Premji said “We believe health vs economy is a false choice. These two are deeply related. If we don’t tackle the pandemic on the health front, it will continue to cause deep disruption in the economy”.
Wipro committed $150 million towards fighting Covid-19 in humanitarian aid, and towards helping augment capacity of the medical and service fraternity. “If not now, when?” Rishad asked. He firmly believes that corporations have duty to the community.
Wipro’s relief work is spread across 29 states. It tapped into its 1600 volunteer ecosystem. It got 10,000 government school teachers to partner along with 2,000 Azim Premji University alumni and works closely with 350 NGOs.
Knowing that the humanitarian crisis is going to be long drawn, Wirpo is banking on its staying power and believes speed and scale are critical if it is to make a meaningful impact.
Wipro is turning a campus in Pune into a 450-bed Covid-19 hospital. It’s planning to handover by 30 May for 12 months.
As of 21 May, 2020, Wipro had provided dry rations to 6.5 million people, had provided hot meals to 2.5 million. Meals were cooked in Wipro’s campus across the country and distributed to homeless and migrant labor. Apart from that, it provided 190,000 PPE kits, 200,000 N95 masks. It is working with the state and district administration in helping them enhance testing capacity.
