Covid-19: Armed Forces granted emergency powers to establish hospitals, procure materials

Armed forces were granted emergency financial powers on Friday as Centre planned to involved them in bigger way to combat the Covid-19 pandemic with cases recording an alarming rise, pushing the existing civil health infrastructure to breaking point.

These powers will help Formation Commanders to establish and operate quarantine facilities, hospitals and undertake procurement, repair of equipment, items, material stores, besides provisioning of various services and works required to support the ongoing effort against the pandemic.

These powers are are in addition to the emergency powers delegated to the Medical Officers of the Armed Forces last week.

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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh took to Twitter to announce the decision of invoking special provisions and granting emergency financial powers to the Armed Forces to empower them and speed up their efforts in tide over the current Covid-19 situation in the country.

Under these powers, Vice Chiefs of Armed Forces including Chief Of Integrated Defence Staff To The Chairman Chiefs Of Staff Committee (CISC) and General Officer Commanding-in-Chiefs (GOC-in-Cs) and equivalents of all three services have been given full powers, whereas Corps Commanders/Area Commanders have been delegated powers up to Rs 50 lakh per case and Division Commanders/Sub Area Commanders and equivalents have been delegated powers up to Rs 20 lakh per case.

These powers have been devolved initially for a period of three months from May 1 to July 31, 2021.

The emergency powers were sanctioned to the Armed Forces last year too when the Covid-19 pandemic had first broken out. This had helped the Armed Forces tackle the situation faster and in an effective manner.

Last week the defence minister had roped the Army in extending support to the civilian administration to tackle the pressing pandemic and called upon the Armed Forces to be in close contact with the state governments and be ready to provide any required assistance.

Singh had then also asked Army Chief General M M Naravane, Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar and DRDO chief G Satheesh Reddy to offer available facilities and expertise to civilians during the Corona crisis Singh also told the Army Chief that local commanders must reach out to CMs and offer all possible help.

After the defence minister's direction, Defence Secretary Kumar had on April 20 issued instructions that 67 Cantt Board Hospitals across India advised to ensure medical service to all patients -both Cantt residents and non-residents.

Singh had also asked Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs),Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and DRDO to work on war footing to provide oxygen cylinders and extra beds to civil administration/state governments at the earliest.

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The Union Minister also already made a suggestion to utilise the services of vaccinated retired Armed Forces personnel to assist the civil administration/state governments to deal with the current situation. It has been decided that the Army would consider offering treatment to civilians in its medical facilities, wherever possible, besides extending other assistance to civil administrations.

Army units in various states can get in touch with state administrations to understand their requirement like creation of additional capacities to deal with increasing volume of patients. The senior-most Army officer in a state would get in touch with the chief minister to understand the requirement and take forward the process, including offering to treat civilians wherever possible, they said.

Indian Air Force has ordered round-the-clock readiness of its entire heavy-lift fleet and substantial numbers of its medium-lift fleets to meet Covid-19 related tasks while DRDO has initiated the moves to set up 500 medical oxygen plants within the next three months from the allocation made by the PM Cares Fund.

DRDO will be using the technology developed for on-board oxygen generation for light combat aircraft (LCA) Tejas. The transfer of MOP technology has been done to Bengaluru-based Tata Advanced Systems Limited and Coimbatore-based Trident Pneumatics, which together will set up 380 plants.