Coronavirus pandemic | ITI, DRDO to sign pact for producing portable ventilators

Electronics manufacturing company ITI Limited and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are set to sign an agreement for the manufacturing of portable ventilators, a top official of the public sector firm said on Thursday.

The company expects to start production of the ventilators in about two-and-a-half months from the date of signing of the memorandum of understanding and technology transfer of the ventilator technology to it from the DRDO.

"We are going to sign a memorandum of understanding with DRDO in the next 2-3 days for the transfer of technology for portable ventilators. We will get 80-90 per cent components locally and the rest will have to be imported. We expect to start manufacturing ventilators in the Bengaluru plant in two-and-a-half months from the date of technology transfer," ITI Chairman and Managing Director RM Agarwal told PTI.

He said that the cost of ventilators will depend on the size of the order that the PSU will get. "The cost of ventilators that we will produce will be lower than units of the same quality. Being a PSU, we will not charge high margins. The final cost cannot be estimated at present because the cost of components for low volume production will be high and less for high volume production. Once DRDO transfers technology, we will start working on material cost and orders," Agarwal said.