Ever since the Coronavirus pandemic broke out, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has mounted a strategic, well-coordinated and integrated approach towards mitigating the Coronavirus outbreak ranging from containing the spread of the virus by providing sanitisation and disinfection solutions to equipping the frontline workers and health warriors with protective gear, and from exploring repurposing of existing drugs to discovering new drugs and vaccines. CSIR has now brought out a compendium called CSIR Technologies for COVID-19 Mitigation encapsulating these efforts over the past almost hundred days.

CSIR brought to bear its rich R&D knowledgebase by coming up with rapid testing technologies, cost-effective diagnostic kits, virus culture, genome sequencing and disease surveillance. Besides, its laboratories also came up with almost 100 technologies in as many days of the pandemic. Of these about 60 have been transferred to industries for large-scale manufacture and immediate supply. These ranged from ventilators to protective equipment, indigenous diagnostic kits to clinical trials of repurposed drugs, hand sanitizers and masks to disinfection machines and walkways.

With the lockdown effecting reverse migration, CSIR took upon itself to provide tons of nutritious and ready-to-eat immunity-boosting foods to the needy migrants in various parts of the country. 

CSIR laboratories are also working on promoting rural employment through various schemes. With the lockdown disrupting normal supply chains throughout the country, CSIR launched the KisanSabha portal and App to support the farmers to get better prices for their produce. It is very heartening that the farming community has received the App very well.