The Defence Ministry has decided to airlift 23 mobile oxygen generation plants from Germany. Officials said each plant will have a capacity to produce 40 litres of oxygen per minute and 2,400 litres per hour. This comes after an acute shortage of oxygen in New Delhi and parts of Maharashtra.
Principal Spokesperson in the defence ministry A Bharat Bhushan Babu said the oxygen generation plants will be deployed in the AFMS hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.
Earlier, Modi held a virtual meeting with leading oxygen manufacturers and urged the industry to utilise tankers meant to transport other gases for oxygen supply, saying the time now is not only to deal with the challenges but also to provide solutions in a very short time.
He stressed the need to maintain good coordination between the government and the oxygen producers.
He also chaired a high-level meeting with chief ministers of 11 states and union territories with maximum COVID-19 cases and urged them to work as one and coordinate with one another to fulfil medical requirements, asserting that “if we work as one nation, there will not be any scarcity of resources”.
Modi asserted that every state should ensure that no oxygen tanker, irrespective of its destination, is stopped or gets stranded.
To boost oxygen supply, the Centre also decided to immediately install DRDO-Tata Sons oxygen generation plants at various state-run hospitals like AIIMS, NIC Jhajjar, Safdarjung, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital among others. These will have the capacity to generate 1,000 litres of oxygen per minute.
The Indian Air Force on Friday airlifted empty oxygen containers to various filling stations across the country, which recorded over 3 lakh new coronavirus cases for the third second consecutive day.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for utilising the industry’s full potential to meet the demand for medical oxygen and said Railways and Air Force are being deployed to reduce the transportation time for oxygen tankers.
Besides oxygen tankers and containers, the IAF also airlifted doctors and nursing staff from Kochi, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Bengaluru for various hospitals in Delhi, besides transporting essential medicines as well as equipment required by the designated covid hospitals in various parts of the country.
Officials said the IAF deployed its transport aircraft C-17, C-130J, IL-76, An-32 and Avro while keeping its Chinook and Mi-17 helicopters on standby.
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