NHAI starts work on 28 oxygen plants in state

Nagpur: To tide over the oxygen crisis for Covid-19 patients, of the 581 oxygen generation plants to be set up in the country, 28 will be installed at various state government hospitals in Maharashtra. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has launched civil and electrical works for these plants.
NHAI officials said that of the 28 captive medical oxygen plants, 6 will be set up by the Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) and 22 by HLL Infra Tech Services (HITES). Nationally, DRDO will set up 400 plants while HITES will install 181 plants.
Regional NHAI officials said work on one 100 litres per minute (LPM) and 500 LPM plant for a 30-bed hospital in Warud in Amravati district and a 100-bed district women’s hospital in Akola has already started.
The 22 oxygen plants to be installed by HITES will be located one each at Dhule, Sangli and Warud, besides Pune (5), Ratnagiri (4), Jalna (4), and Hingoli (3). “All these 19 plants will have an oxygen generating capacity of 100 LPM. Three plants – the one at Latur will have a 200 LPM capacity while Jalna and Akola will have 500 LPM output each,” said officials.
The NHAI officials informed that the six DRDO plants with 1,000 LPM capacity will be located one each at Dhule, Jalna, Pune, Nanded, Aurangabad and Latur. Pune and Jalna will have six plants. Oxygen will be provided to hospitals through the pipeline system and these plants will be established with aid from the PM Cares Fund.
NHAI officials said sites have been identified and work on plants according to the priority list has begun. “As NHAI is the nodal agency for the civil and electrical works for these plants, the existing road contractors have been roped in to start work on these plants. We can complete this task by including this in the ‘change of scope’ of the ongoing projects. We have identified all the locations and tied up supplies for man and material,” they added.
The ministry of health and family welfare has set a May 31, 2021 deadline to at least commission 52 oxygen plants in the country. The NHAI has also been told to make available DG sets for 24x7 power back up.