HYDERABAD: Amid the acute shortage of medical oxygen in hospitals across the country, Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) has imported 11 cryogenic tanks from Bangkok in Thailand, to be provided to Telangana State free of cost. These tanks will help to increase the supply of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) to hospitals.
The first batch of three tanks landed at the Begumpet Air Force Station here on Saturday, and the remaining eight will arrive in a few days. Each cryogenic tank can supply 1.40 crore litres of medical oxygen, and the 11 tanks in total can provide 15.40 crore litres.
According to an official release from the Defence Ministry: “A heavy lift transport aircraft of the IAF IL-76 (Gajraj) airlifted three cryogenic oxygen tankers from Bangkok to the Air Force Station in Begumpet. The aircraft landed at 2.15 pm on Saturday. This will be followed by a few more ferries in the coming week.”
Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar said that as part of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the company, MEIL assured that it would donate 11 cryogenic tankers to the State government. The CS flagged off the three tankers which were received on Saturday. They will be taken to Odisha by train to be filled with oxygen.
In addition to top management of MEIL, Finance Minister T Harish Rao, and a team of senior officers belonging to the advisory committee formed under the Chief Secretary have been supervising the whole operation.
The Union Defence and External Affairs Ministry, which has been supervising the whole operation, has granted permission for the smooth transport of these tankers from Bangkok. A Defence special flight that took off from Chandigarh picked up the tanks from Bangkok and brought it to Hyderabad.
MEIL, which is on the forefront of bridging the gap between the supply and demand for medical oxygen in the fight against the pandemic by supplying free oxygen to hospitals, has now imported these cryogenic tanks for the State government for present and future use.“Transporting liquid oxygen for medical purposes from the manufacturing plants to the hospitals is riddled with bottlenecks. Now, these 11 cryogenic tanks will help the State government cater to the needs of the hospitals that are in dire need of oxygen,” said P Rajesh Reddy, vice-president MEIL.
While the cryogenic tanks will help in facilitating bulk movement of medical oxygen to health care units, MEIL’s initiative to import the same has also truncated the time to manufacture the tanks, as it would take three months to fabricate a single tanker.The MEIL management, which has kept all its other operations on hold and is concentrating on augmenting oxygen supply to both Telugu States, has taken up the procurement of cryogenic tanks as a priority.
So far, to augment the availability of medical oxygen, MEIL is producing oxygen from its manufacturing unit in Bollarum round-the-clock and supplying it to hospitals in Telangana, AP and Odisha. Empty cylinders each with a capacity of 7,000 litres of liquid oxygen were filled and supplied free of cost to at least 10 hospitals every day. On an average, 400 cylinders are being supplied from MEIL’s Bollarum facility. From May 9, 2021 to May 21, 2021 MEIL has supplied 29,694 tonnes of LMO, which translates to 3 crore litres of oxygen.