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While announcing the allocation of Rs 35,000 crore for coronavirus vaccines in the Union budget in end-January finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government would earmark more funds for the purpose if necessary. The Rs 50,000 crore liquidity window that the RBI governor announced on Wednesday is a welcome relief when the nation is struggling on several fronts from a shortage of hospital beds to oxygen and vaccines to ventilators.

These funds will be channelised to the companies in the healthcare sector through the banks. RBI has announced that the loans will be available at a repo rate, or 4%, for the banks and has categorised it as priority sector lending to expedite sanction and disbursal. Companies can utilise this money to improve on a number of fronts – scale-up oxygen production, provide more hospital beds, ICUs, ventilators, ramp up production of vaccines, increase testing capabilities, import COVID-related drugs and raw materials for drugs. There are acute shortages of materials and consumables like oxygen and trained manpower that lakhs of victims are enduring every day in their helpless existence and often paying for it with their lives. The RBI governor has also said that even individual patients can be given loans for treatment.

The RBI decision comes when major vaccine producer Serum Institute of India is underscoring the need for funds to increase capacities to manufacture vaccines – the only recognised defence against the virus. Hospitals can also access these funds to increase beds and procure medical equipment critical for the management of COVID patients.

After RBI handed over the ammunition, it depends on the companies in the healthcare sector to make the best use of it to intensify the battle against the virus. It is all the more necessary since experts are warning of a third wave of the infection. We need to prepare our defences well in time.