Oxygen Crisis: DRDO sets up Oxygen plants at AIIMS, RML hospital

New Delhi: In order to short out acute Oxygen crisis in Delhi in the second surge of Covid 19, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has set up two oxygen plants in All India Institute of Medical Sciences Trauma Centre and Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in Delhi.

"These plants is expected to get functional today after a last round of technical audit is done", a DRDO official said.

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These Medical Oxygen Plants are designed for a flow rate of 1,000 litres per minute (LPM). The system can cater to 190 patients at a flow rate of 5 LPM and fill 195 cylinders per day.

DRDO is to establish three more plants in Delhi and Haryana within this week. These include Safdarjung Hospital, Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi and Jhajjar AIIMS in Haryana.

These plants are being set up from PM-Cares Fund following the Government decided to set up 500 such plants across the country within next three months.

The Medical Oxygen Plant (MOP) technology has been developed by DRDO based on the "On‐Board Oxygen Generation technology" for indigenous LCA Tejas.

The MOP plants set up in Delhi, have been supplied by Coimbatore-based Trident Pneumatics Limited, a technology partner of DRDO and has been given an order of 48 such plants.

"Order of 332 plants have been placed with Tata Advanced Systems Limited and the delivery will start from mid–May. The delivery schedule is being monitored very closely to deliver before the plants time. Sites are being prepared at each hospital in parallel," the DRDO said.

"These plants will overcome the logistics issues of oxygen transportation and help the Covid-19 patients in emergency," it added.

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