The effort to provide oxygen to Covid-19 patients received a further boost on Wednesday with the government deciding to procure 1 lakh oxygen concentrators for supply to high-burden States and giving approval for an additional 500 pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen plants.

The day also saw many fertiliser plants committing to supply an additional 50 tonnes of liquid oxygen daily to hospitals and FICCI tying up with a group of German small/ medium industries to arrange 1,500 concentrators for private hospitals.

The decision to purchase 1 lakh oxygen concentrators was taken at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These contraptions will be procured at the earliest using PM-CARES fund and given to high-burden States, an official statement said. The PM-CARES fund would also support the procurement of 500 PSA oxygen plants, using a technology developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation for on-board oxygen generation for the Light Combat Aircraft.

The PSA technology, developed by the Bengaluru-based Defence Bio-Engineering Electro Medical Laboratory,, has already been transferred to Tata Advanced Systems, Bengaluru, and Trident Pneumatics, Coimbatore, which will supply 332 and 48 PSA plants, respectively. The other 120 plants will be built by units working with the Dehradun-based Indian Institute of Petroleum. These 500 plants will be in addition to the 713 PSA plants already approved by the government. The DRDO has already commenced site selection for setting up five plants in the Delhi-NCR region. These plants will installed in three months, the statement said.

At meeting convened by Minister of State for Fertlisers and Chemicals Mansukh Mandaviya, fertiliser companies promised to set up oxygen plants to supply 50 tonnes daily to hospitals.

Simultaneously, FICCI said the first batch of oxygen concentrators it had procured with the help of German Association of Small and Medium Enterprises would be airlifted from Frankfurt on Wednesday.

Paytm’s gesture

Elsewhere, Paytm announced that under the #OxygenForIndia initiative, it will airlift 21,000 oxygen concentrators that will reach India in May first week. The company crowd-sourced ₹5 crore and with its matching contribution sourced the concentrators.

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