With cases down, ‘oxygen-rich’ Nagpur supplying Pune, other dists

Nagpur: Four oxygen tankers, with around 56 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen (LMO), were sent to Pune from Nagpur immediately after they were brought to city from Angul in Odisha by oxygen express in the early hours of Tuesday.
With the number of active and hospitalized patients going down in Nagpur, the demand of the oxygen too has come down. During pas few days Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Rrailways coordinated to augment oxygen supply to Nagpur district which had suffered an acute crisis during the Covid surge in April.
Nagpur, having a reserve of around 400 tonnes, forwarded its quota of the oxygen to Pune as one of latter’s plant at Raigarh halted operations to carry out maintenance work. It is learnt the Raigarh plant would need another day to resume operations.
Until the plant starts functioning, Nagpur district will cater to the need of Pune and surrounding districts as at present the Nagpur has a reserve enough for at least four days at present rate of Covid infection. More tankers are set to leave for Pune from Nagpur soon.
Oxygen supply in some districts in Marathwada like Beed and Aurangabad too got affected as another oxygen plant in Gujarat went under maintenance. Nagpur district, which is steadily getting oxygen supply from Bhilai and Angul, has been asked by the state’s oxygen nodal agency to share its quota with the districts that have less.
“Inox had a liquid oxygen reserve of around 300 tonnes as on Monday. Seven air separation units too are producing around 50 tonnes of oxygen daily. Apart from local production, Bhilai is sending 60 tonnes and a substantial quota is coming from Angul,” said an official from the district collectorate.
Collector’s office here is sending oxygen even to districts like Akola and Amravati on a regular basis.