As people gasp, waiting time to install O2 plants goes up
LUCKNOW : As the state government scrambles to meet the ever-increasing need for oxygen in the cities of Uttar Pradesh, here’s a painful bit: UP could have easily warded off the present crisis, if the government’s 2018 plan to set up oxygen plants in 42 government hospitals across the state, had not hit a bureaucratic hurdle.
“Uttar Pradesh might have been the only state where there would have been no shortage of oxygen in government hospitals, if the project had taken off,” said an official of the health department.
Today, the state government is approving applications seeking to set up oxygen plants on a priority. But due to the ever-increasing demand, the waiting time to install plants has gone up. This is due to a dearth of technical experts and skilled workforce required to set up such plants as well a long queue outside the companies into installing oxygen plants in the country . As a result the waiting time to set up a plant and have it up and running is anywhere between two and three months.
On the state government’s request, the micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector has come forward to set up oxygen plants. It is also willing to assist the government in setting up medical oxygen plants in 47 districts of the state which have been sanctioned by the PM under the PM-Cares Fund, set up last year to collect donations to battle Covid-19.
In the 2018 budget, the government had sanctioned Rs 200 crore to set up oxygen plants in 42 government hospitals across the state, each plant with a capacity of 2,000 MTD. The completion year was supposed to be 2019. Among these hospitals, four were in the state capital, including Veerangana Jhalkari Bai Women and Child Hospital, Civil Hospital, Bhaurao Deoras Hospital and Thakurganj Hospital.
But the project is yet to take off after a controversy arose over the health department’s tendering process.
Till April, 2021, the state government had approved 54 applications seeking permission to set up oxygen plants.