Oxygen tanker reaches Kochi from Jharkhand

KOCHI: The first out of the three oxygen tanker trucks sent by the state government to bring medical oxygen to Kerala from Jharkhand, reached Kochi on Thursday morning.
The truck covered over 2500 kms in four days to bring around 9 tonnes of liquefied medical oxygen, which was allotted by the centre to the state.
The oxygen was brought from the Tata Steel plant in Burnpur. The truck reached Cochin Air Products, under the aegis of Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) at 7.30am on Thursday. Two more trucks, which were sent from Kochi, are expected to reach Kochi in the coming days from Bernpur with oxygen.
The three trucks were confiscated by the Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) in Ernakulam from private companies under Disaster Management Act on 8 May. The trucks, which were used to carry Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), were converted into oxygen tankers with the help of Petronet, Kochi.
The trucks were airlifted by the Indian Air Force (IAF) last week. The airlift of three was scheduled to be held on Friday but was cancelled due to adverse weather in the wake of the Tauktae cyclone. Later all the three trucks were taken to Coimbatore airport but only one was airlifted reportedly due to bad weather and space constraints in the aircraft. Then the trucks returned to Kochi and were airlifted on Sunday evening. All the trucks were sent to Panagarh airport in West Bengal. The truck that was airlifted from Coimbatore reached Kochi on Thursday.
The trucks passed through Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. There was a speed limit of 50kmph to ensure safety while transporting the highly inflammable gas. The truck even broke down once at Srikakulam in AP and the journey was resumed eight hours later after the repair works were done.
“Each truck has three expert KSRTC drivers and an assistant motor vehicle inspector, who were given basic training to handle the oxygen tankers. Each day they will take turns and drive for around 18 hours,” said Shaji Madhavan, RTO (Enforcement), Ernakulam.