Rajasthan govt prepares plan to raise oxygen production to 500MT by July 15 | Jaipur News
The total oxygen production capacity will further increase as private hospitals, having 60 beds or above are now required to have their own plants. The medical and health department on Tuesday had directed the private hospitals to set up their oxygen plants within two months.
Siddharth Mahajan, secretary, medical health & family welfare, said, “Currently, we are trying to deploy all the arsenal at our disposal to contain and bring down the cases. At the same time, we are preparing ourselves to be on the top of the situation even if there is a third wave. Ramping up oxygen production to become self-sufficient is a key part of that strategy.”
State government funds available in medical health departments and local bodies, contributions from private companies and central assistance are being mobilized to significantly increase production.
“We expect much of the planned projects will come on stream by July 15. This will put us on a much stronger footing to ably deal with a crisis like this,” added Mahajan.
The local bodies which are planning to create new capacity of 11,725 cylinders per day have started issuing works orders for the plants.
The government has already started importing oxygen concentrators from Russia and it is also tapping the Chinese markets for the same purpose. By the end of this month, it will purchase more than 28,000 units.
In the past few days, 3,500 oxygen concentrators have reached the state, including 750 from Russia. The medical health department has floated global tenders to procure more.
“We have got very good response to our global tenders for concentrators. The priority is quick delivery of the machines. We will deploy them in all district hospitals,” Mahajan said.
The virus is spreading fast in rural areas and the hospitals there don’t have enough oxygen beds. The concentrators are easy to deploy and works better for mediumlevel critical patients.
