Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sanctioned the procurement of one lakh portable oxygen concentrators from the PM Cares Fund on Wednesday. In addition to the earlier sanctioned 713 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) plants under PM Cares Fund, 500 new PSA oxygen plants have been sanctioned.
On Twitter, PM Modi wrote, "1 lakh portable oxygen concentrators will be procured. 500 more PSA oxygen plants sanctioned from PM-CARES. This will improve access to oxygen, specially in district HQs and Tier-2 cities." The decision take placed at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the measures needed to improve Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) Supply for COVID management.
Prime Minister instructed that these oxygen concentrators should be procured at the earliest and provided in states with high case burden, informed an official release by the Prime Minister's Office. The PSA plants will augment the supply of LMO at hospitals in district headquarters and Tier 2 cities. These 500 PSA plants will be established with the transfer of the indigenous technology developed by DRDO and CSIR.
Meanwhile, establishing PSA plants and procurement of portable oxygen concentrators will greatly augment the supply of oxygen near the demand clusters. Thereby addressing the current logistical challenges in transporting oxygen from plants to hospitals. At the same time, Hospitals in several states grappling with the shortage of oxygen due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. The Government of India has been importing oxygen concentrators and oxygen generation equipment from various countries.
Meanwhile, India reported over 3.60 lakh fresh COVID-19 cases and close to 3,300 related deaths in the last 24 hours. A total of 3,60,960 new COVID-19 cases, 3,293 related deaths and 2,61,162 recoveries reported in the last 24 hours. Taking the total active cases to 29,78,709, as per the health ministry update on Wednesday morning. The total count of positive cases now stands at 1,79,97,267 whereas the death toll has soared up to 2,01,187 deaths. A total of 1,48,17,371 people have recovered so far from the disease.
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