Leading FMCG companies Godrej and ITC reduced the price of their sanitisers by Rs 50. While Godrej reduced the price of their product – Godrej Protekt Sanitizer reduced its price from Rs 75 to Rs 25, ITC cut the Savlon sanitizer from Rs 77 to Rs 27.
Earlier, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has asked the state governments and union territories to provide necessary permissions to the hand sanitiser producers to increase the production in view of surge in demand and thereby ensure its availability. All possible arrangements should be made to ensure that Ethyl Alcohol is made easily available to the sanitiser industry.
The Ministry's communication to state governments and UTs comes close on the heels of a whopping 400% increase in the demand of hand sanitisers in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. ''The demand of sanitisers is increasing day by day and to maintain demand and supply balance the state governments and UTs have been asked to accord necessary approvals of licensing and storage of Ethyl Alcohol/Extra Neutral Alcohol/Ethanol to the sanitiser industries up to their installed capacity without any quota restriction on supply of these products,'' the ministry said.
With the demand and supply of the product going up, people have already found innovative ways to make their own hand sanitisers. Recently, IIT-Delhi’s chemistry department prepared their own in-house solution.
Taking to LinkedIn on Saturday, Ramgopal Rao, the Director of IIT Delhi, narrated how the Chemistry department of the institution decided to take matters into their own hands.
Rao recalls that "out of frustration" he had suggested to one of the Chemistry professors that they prepare the solution in-house.
"...for such a small thing, you don't need an IIT Professor, it can be done by our technical staff," he was told.
In two days, the team, led by Technical Superintendent J P Singh and Junior Lab Assistant Rajbir Singh had prepared "50 litres of hand sanitizers meeting WHO standard (certified by IIT Profs)". The cost incurred says Rao, was negligible.
