A letter to this regard was sent to the prime ministeron April 20. It was signed by more than 600 scientists,professors and research scholars from institutes across thecountry under the platform 'India March for Science', arelease issued on Tuesday by the group's Kolkata organisingcommittee said.
A major chunk of the signatories is either frominstitutes in West Bengal or people from the state who are atpresent in different establishments across the country, amember of the organisation said.
In the letter, they suggested that the unemployedscience graduates be recruited and trained in the fightagainst the coronavirus outbreak and biology laboratories inthe institutes be used to increase the testing of samples, therelease said.
The scientists also called for increasing theproduction of ventilators.
"Many relatively inexpensive designs of ventilators,including mechanised Ambubags, may be arranged and Indianpharmaceutical companies and other manufacturers should berequisitioned to mass-produce such ventilators to meet thenation's requirement," the letter said.
Faculty members and students of several institutionsalso expressed their willingness to offer their servicesduring the ongoing crisis, the release said.
Professors Soumitro Banerjee of IISER-Kolkata, AlladiSitaram of the Indian Statistical Institute, DebashisMukherjee of the S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences-Kolkata, Parongama Sen of the University of Calcutta, AnupamBasu of the IIT-Kharagpur and Debabrata Bera of the JadavpurUniversity are some of the signatories, it added. SUSACD ACD