India saw its worst form of virus outbreak in form of COVID 19. This dreaded virus brought the entire nation to a standstill and Odisha being no exception. The entire State was called for a lockdown and there was no or minimal mobility. The primary precautionary measures suggested by the State Govt. were to regularly use the sanitizer and cover the face with face mask. But just after the outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic, particularly in Odisha, one of the major problems faced by the local people was, face masks, to cover their nose and mouth. The local market ran out of the masks due to its huge demand and those who were having it were charging exorbitant prices. The local people were finding it difficult to arrange masks for themselves as well as for their family members.

Looking at the severity of the situation, the Board of Directors of the Gruhalaxmi decided and entrusted themselves with the responsibility to produce mask with the help of its members. The Board of Directors identified 16 dedicated and highly skilled women members, who had previously taken training in the Tailoring Training Programme, to come out and serve the purpose. After a detail orientation on mask making and its hygiene, all the 16 women were given the responsibility to produce mask in their households. Following this, started the real efforts made by 16 determined mask warriors, who not only managed their household chores but also relentlessly produced the masks and in mere 10 days’ time they produced more than 5000 masks. “It is not for the money that we are doing this but to safeguard the lives of the people is our real concern”, said Narmada Samal, who was one of the masks warriors. After the production of mask, in no time, the community got flooded with masks and the local people started to buy masks from Gruhalaxmi.

Looking at the efforts made by the members of Gruhalaxmi, the Top Management of the TATA Steel BSL, gave a work order to Gruhalaxmi to prepare 20,000 masks. The Company provided all necessary logistical support to Gruhalaxmi such as transportation of raw materials from Bhubaneswar to Cooperative Office. Not only this, TATA CSR team also extended their helping hand to Gruhalaxmi by providing their Mobile Medical Van for transportation of raw materials to the tailors as well as picking up the finished product from them. Till March’2020, Gruhalaxmi has supplied 5377 masks for Medical Unit of TATA Steel BSL all the women engaged in the mask making earned an income of ₹ 300/- to ₹ 350/- per day.