NEW DELHI: The government wants the private sector to ramp up production of ventilators and personal protective equipment gloves and goggles to build capacity to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic even though the current requirement is well under control since a small percentage of patients are needing such support.The empowered committee led by Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant held a virtual interaction with senior industry leaders on Thursday to amplify the logistics supply chain for ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPEs), gloves, goggles and other such equipment for frontline medical professionals combating the Covid-19 outbreak. The increased availability of ventilators and other equipment will significant enhance medical facilities, particularly in smaller cities and towns where specialised services are less easily accessible.The government has cast its net wide for ventilators and has roped in public sector firms but now wants the private sector to use its resources to manufacture the items domestically to meet any additional demand in the event of the spread of the virus.“It was basically a message to ramp up manufacturing and less of imports,” said an industry source. The industry has promised to involve the auto sector to use its production line to manufacture ventilators and several companies such as Maruti, Mahindra , Tatas, Bharat Forge and others have committed to build a supply chain for such equipment, both for use domestically as well as for exports. The companies have promised to use 3D technology to meet the demand for such specialised equipment since some of the inputs of key components would require imports which my not be easy given the current turmoil.“The big companies have to be involved as it requires sustained and largescale manufacturing,” said another source.Industry leaders, largely from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), also promised to encourage textile companies such as Gokuldas, Shahi Exports, Matrix, Arvind and others to ramp up manufacturing of gloves, PPEs and other equipment. Another area which the private sector has been asked to focus is the manufacturing of testing kits. Industry leaders have agreed to examine the issues and encourage its members to focus their attention to meet the surging demand.K Vijayaraghavan, principal scientific adviser to the PM, officials from the ministry of external affairs and PMO and other members of the empowered committee were present in the meeting.