Coronavirus: India cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar donates $135,000 to ‘Mission Oxygen’

Dubai: Batting great Sachin Tendulkar has contributed Rs1 crore ($135,000) to ‘Mission Oxygen’, an initiative on the medical fund-raising website Ketto aiming to help procure oxygen cylinders for hospitals in India for COVID-19 patients.

“The second wave of COVID has put our healthcare system under immense pressure. Providing oxygen for the large number of serious COVID patients is the need of the hour,” Tendulkar said in a statement on social media on Thursday. “It is heartening to see how people are rising to the occasion. A group of 250+ young entrepreneurs have launched Mission Oxygen to raise funds for importing oxygen concentrators and donating them to hospitals across the country. I’ve helped by contributing to the cause and hope that their effort soon reaches out to many more hospitals across India. Today, we have to stand together behind everyone that is working hard to fight this pandemic.”

Tendulkar’s name appears at the top of the list of donors on the initiative’s page on the website. It has raised more than Rs17 crore so far with a target of Rs35 crore.

It said on Thursday that it has already placed an order for 3,900 concentrators.