MEIL imports 11 oxygen tanks from Bangkok

Hyderabad: City-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) is importing 11 cryogenic oxygen tanks from Bangkok (Thailand) amid the acute shortage of medical oxygen in hospitals across the country in the fight against Covid.

These tanks that will help increase the supply of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) to hospitals, are being provided by MEIL to Telangana State free of cost.

The first batch of 3 tanks landed at the Begumpet Airforce Station here on Saturday, and the remaining 8 tanks will arrive in two more batches in the next few days. Each cryogenic tank could supply 1.40 crore litres of medical oxygen and 15.40 crore litres from all the 11 tanks.

In addition to the top management of MEIL, Telangana Finance Minister T Harish Rao, a team of senior officers belonging to the advisory committee formed under the Telangana government's Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, have supervised the whole operation.

The Union Defence and External Affairs Ministry, which has been supervising the whole operation, has granted permission for these tankers' smooth transport from Bangkok. A Defence special flight from Chandigarh has picked up the tanks from Bangkok before reaching Hyderabad.

"Transporting liquid Oxygen for medical purposes from the manufacturing plants to the hospitals is riddled with bottlenecks. Now, these 11 cryogenic tanks will help the State government to cater to the needs of the hospitals that are in dire need of oxygen," said P Rajesh Reddy, Vice-President, MEIL.

While the cryogenic tanks will cut short the time by facilitating the bulk movement of medical oxygen to health care units, the MEIL's initiative to import has also truncated the time of manufacture of cryogenic tanks, which would have taken three months to fabricate one tanker.

The MEIL management, which has kept all its other operations on hold and is concentrating on augmenting oxygen supply to both the Telugu States, has taken up the procurement of cryogenic tanks on priority.

MEIL's Bollarum unit supplied 30,000 MT of LMO

From MEIL's Bollarum facility, an average 400 cylinders, are being supplied so far. Between May 9 and 21, MEIL has delivered 29,694 MT of LMO, which translates to 2.97 crore litres of oxygen.

To augment the transportation of the medical oxygen, MEIL is producing oxygen from its manufacturing unit in Bollarum round the clock and supplying it to hospitals in Telangana and AP States besides Odisha.

MEIL has set up a team to supply oxygen to the hospitals, round the clock. Each cylinder with 7,000 litres capacity of liquid oxygen, were filled and provided free of cost to at least to 10 hospitals every day. So far, 4,242 cylinders have been supplied to various hospitals.