Only 33 Oxygen production plant built, of 150 sanctioned

28

Oct

PRAKSHI RAWAT

PSA oxygen plants produce more pure oxygen than liquid oxygen plants derived from cryogenic techniques, they could've helped alleviate the ongoing medical oxygen emergency.

While India was suffering its first Covid peak in October, the government has issued a tender for 150 pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen plant facilities with a total capacity of 80,500 l / min, which are integrated inside hospital premises and so reduce its reliance on cylinders.

The number of authorized facilities seemed to rise in January, when the government declared that it had set up Rs201.58 crore for the construction of 162 PSA oxygen plants across India.

A PSA oxygen plant uses digital technology that captures nitrogen from the atmosphere in favor of focusing oxygen for hospital use. They function at approaching temperatures and trap oxygen at elevated heat using adsorbents (materials that capture a substance on their surface) such as zeolites, activated carbon and adsorbents.

While the oxygen production plants are assumed to be less pure than oxygen liquid plants derived from cryogenic technology, the plants could have aided in alleviating India's long term medical oxygen crisis, which has emerged as one of the government's most challenging issues in the struggle against the second Covid wave, Say industry experts. The plants are also described as being more economical.

The Central Medical Services Society (CMSS), an administrative organization under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, is indeed the nodal agency for tenders and testing and commissioning in this regard. Last October, it issued a tender for the installation of PSA oxygen plants in medical centers.

According to industry professionals, the orders were completed in December, but when the vendors came at the clinics to install them, most "met opposition."

"The usual answer was there was no room. The true reason, according to an industry insider, was presumably powerful interests in preferring to acquire oxygen but instead of providing the assignment done on-site.

The Print sought multiple times across several days to contact CMSS Director General Suresh Puri and Nipun Vinayak, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health, but got no response to questions about the PSA plants. An email sent from the ministry of health went unheeded as well.

The health ministry stated in a statement in April that the 162 plants will assist increase India's clinical oxygen capacity by 154.19mt.

"Of the 162 PSA plants authorized by the Government of India, 33 have already been installed," it continued, adding that some other 59 will be implemented by the end of this year.