Our Bureau
Steel Authority of India (SAIL), one of the largest domestic steel producers, has been enhancing its capabilities to supply Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) in the country, and has doubled the capacity over the last few weeks.
In addition to supply of LMO, SAIL is going to set up additional 2,500 hospital beds, outside its current medical facilities, with the support of gaseous oxygen brought by dedicated gas pipelines from the plants. These beds will use gaseous oxygen directly as an additional source of oxygen as the demand for LMO is currently high, the company said in a statement.
The daily delivery of LMO from its integrated steel plants situated at Bhilai (Chhattisgarh), Rourkela (Odisha), Bokaro (Jharkhand), Durgapur and Burnpur (West Bengal) has been increased from about 500 tonnes in the second week of April to more than 1,100 tonnes per day currently, it said.
The company has so far supplied around 50,000 tonnes of LMO. In April, SAIL has delivered more than 17,500 tonnes of LMO to 15 States .
Till date, 14 of the “Oxygen Express” carrying more than 950 tonnes LMO have been loaded for various parts of the county from SAIL plants at Bokaro, Rourkela and Durgapur. SAIL plants have also received tankers, which have been airlifted and after loading have moved to their destinations by road and rail, it said.
With arrival of ISO tankers, SAIL facilities have delivered these tankers after suitable conversion and modifications at the delivery points. Production of LMO at SAIL facilities are being ramped up by optimizing process parameters. The production and delivery are taking place 24x7 at SAIL plants, it added.