Delhi gets 27 new oxygen plants, Satyendar Jain says will aid Covid fight

The pressure swing adsorption plants added 31 metric tonnes to the oxygen production capacity of Delhi, as the government prepares for a potential future Covid wave

The Delhi government on Wednesday inaugurated 27 oxygen plants and two cryogenic refilling plants across public hospitals in the city, as part of its preparations to bolster the Capital’s medical capabilities to tackle any future Covid-19 surges.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain, referring to the oxygen plants, said the state government is taking Covid precautions, ahead of the festive season. (ANI)

The pressure swing adsorption (PSA) plants inaugurated on Wednesday added 31 metric tonnes to the city’s oxygen production capacity, and the refilling plants are of 12 metric tonnes capacity.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said, “The Delhi government is taking complete precaution regarding Covid-19, in light of the coming festival season. The government has already put in place a graded response system in the public domain. Presently, only three to five infected people are being tested positive for every 10,000 Covid-19 tests. The graded response system will kick in when the Capital will report five positive cases against 1,000 tests a day,” he said.

According to the response plan, seen by HT, the first curbs are triggered when the Covid-19 test positivity rate crosses 0.5%, or new cases over a week exceeds 1,500, or if there are more than 500 oxygen beds occupied on average over a seven-day period.

The plan classifies an outbreak into four bands, with an ascending order of severity – yellow, amber, orange and.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated five plants in May this year and 22 in June. As the state and Centre ramp up health care infrastructure in the Capital, 73 PSA plants with a total capacity of 77.80MT are being installed in the city’s hospitals.

Of these, 10 plants of 22.50MT have been commissioned in central government hospitals under the PM-Cares Fund, and these will be inaugurated on October 7, 2021. Besides, the health minister on Wednesday inaugurated two bottling plants with a capacity of 12.5MT at Siraspur. These have the capacity to refill 1,400 jumbo cylinders in 24 hours, the government said in a statement.

The Kejriwal government in early August this year approved the “Medical Oxygen Production Promotion policy - 2021”, which gives the private sector a range of incentives as well to set up oxygen production plants, storage facilities and procure oxygen tankers.

“This policy will help improve the availability of oxygen in Delhi, which became a major constraint while handling the previous Covid-19 waves. This policy has been made with the objective of making Delhi self-sufficient in the production of medical oxygen to deal with the situation of any medical emergency in future,” the government statement said.