Google has announced a financial aid of Rs 135 crore for India to fight against Covid19 pandemic.
The funding will be provided for medical supplies, organisations supporting high-risk communities, and grants to help spread critical information.
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Announcing this, Google CEO Sundar Pichai on his Twitter handle on Monday said: “Devastated to see the worsening Covid crisis in India. Google & Googlers are providing Rs 135 Crore in funding to @GiveIndia@UNICEF for medical supplies, orgs supporting high-risk communities, and grants to help spread critical information.”
Devastated to see the worsening Covid crisis in India. Google & Googlers are providing Rs 135 Crore in funding to @GiveIndia, @UNICEF for medical supplies, orgs supporting high-risk communities, and grants to help spread critical information.https://t.co/OHJ79iEzZH
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) April 26, 2021
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Sanjay Gupta, Google’s Country Head & VP, India, said: “Right now India is going through our most difficult moment in the pandemic thus far.”
“Daily COVID-19 cases continue to set record highs, with hospitals filled to capacity and in need of urgent supplies to cope with the increasing number of patients.”
“Our Google community and their families are feeling the devastating impact, too. We’re asking ourselves what more we can do as a company to ensure people get the information and support they need to keep their families and communities healthy and safe.”
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“Today we’re announcing 135 Crore INR (18 million US dollar) in new funding for India,” he said.
This includes two grants from Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, totalling Rs 20 Crore INR (2.6 million US dollar), Gupta added.
The first is to GiveIndia to provide cash assistance to families hit hardest by the crisis to help with their everyday expenses.
The second will go to UNICEF to help get urgent medical supplies, including oxygen and testing equipment, to where it’s needed most in India.
“It also includes donations from our ongoing employee giving campaign — so far more than 900 Googlers have contributed 3.7 Crore INR (500,000 US dollar) for organizations supporting high-risk and marginalized communities,” the India Head of Google said.
This funding also includes increased Ad Grant support for public health information campaigns.
“Since last year, we’ve helped MyGov and the World Health Organization reach audiences with messages focused on how to stay safe and facts about vaccines. We’re increasing our support today with an additional 112 Crore INR (15 million dollar) in Ad Grants to local health authorities and nonprofits for more language coverage options,” Gupta said.
“On YouTube, we are supporting the government in their vaccine communication strategy, as well as working to raise up authoritative information and reduce misinformation,” Gupta said.
“We recently ran a workshop for 200+ health officials to learn how they can use YouTube to reach audiences across Indian languages with vaccine information. And we’ve added support for public donations for several nongovernmental organizations on Google Pay,” the Country Head added.
Gupta hoped the “situation will turn around for our country soon, but as we have learned over the course of this pandemic, hope is not enough”.
“At Google we’ll continue to work with local governments, partners and communities to give people the tools to stay healthy and safe. We’ll get through this tough time together,” he further said.