UP gets largest liquid oxygen plant, 200 hospitals to benefit

LUCKNOW: At a time when demand for medical oxygen has skyrocketed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, UP got its largest liquid oxygen facility that will be able to cater to about 200 hospitals and medical institutes.

Inaugurated by chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday, the plant is located in Ghaziabad’s Modinagar and has an oxygen capacity of 150 tonnes per day and a storage capacity of 1,000 tons.

The ultra-high purity cryogenic oxygen plant is the largest gas manufacturing unit in UP. Its air separation plant with a capacity of 200 tons per day will produce liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen and liquid argon.

Yogi said that with the new plant functional, supply of oxygen in the state, especially when the country is battling the Covid-19 pandemic, will not be a hindrance in the treatment of patients. “It will now be a thing of the past when the state was struggling for availability of oxygen. After the installation of High Flow Nasal Cannula (HFNC), demand for oxygen for Covid patients has gone up in hospitals. The new facility will bridge the gap between demand and supply,” he said.

The company, INOX Air Products, which commissioned this plant has another plant in the state which was set up around 1990, is now producing 265 tons per day of oxygen, more than the state’s current demand of about 150 tons per day. What is not used in hospitals will be provided to industrial units, many of which have been diverting their stocks to hospitals to meet the Covid demand.

INOX also announced its plan to set up another plant in Lucknow or Kanpur at an investment of about Rs 150 crore. Siddharth Jain, director of INOX, said the new plant should be ready to roll out within the next two years.

“Earlier, it was importing oxygen from other states but with this plant, UP will now become Atmanirbhar. We had signed an MoU for this plant with the government during the 2018 Investors’ Summit and its foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 29, 2018. Work was definitely disrupted during the lockdown but our workers and associates put in a Herculean effort to finish this plant during the lockdown constraints,” Jain said.

The plant has a fleet of 15 specialized cryogenic tankers having a total capacity of 2.3 lakh litres of oxygen. Commissioned with a project outlay of Rs 135 crore, the new plant will generate 150 direct and indirect employment opportunities in the state.