During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) has taken various initiatives to fulfil the demand for medical-grade oxygen in the country. Of these, the most recent is its order for its fourth oxygen plant at Paradeep in Odisha. The other three plants are coming up at Kalol in Gujarat, and at Aonla and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh.
The Paradeep plant will commence operations by June 15. The capacity of this new oxygen plant is 150 cubic metres per hour (cmph). The Aonla and Phulpur plants will start producing oxygen by May 30. With these four plants, IFFCO’s total oxygen production will rise to 610 cmph.
In keeping with its tradition of service for nation-building, IFFCO will be giving free oxygen to the hospitals. It’s time to fight this pandemic together and take the country out of the current crisis.
The transposition of these plants requires some time. A dedicated separate team has been assigned for this project in all the plants. It is an automatic cylinder-filling turnkey plant.
The Paradeep plant will generate medical-grade oxygen and fill 520 big D-type cylinders daily as well as 200 medium B-size cylinders, which will be supplied on demand to all hospitals free from June 15.
It will fill up the oxygen cylinders for hospitals in Odisha and adjoining areas. They need to bring their own cylinders for a refill. A security deposit will be taken if cylinders are taken from IFFCO in order to prevent hoarding of oxygen.
The groundwork for all new oxygen plants of IFFCO has already started.
People at IFFCO are educating farmers and villagers at the remotest level about this pandemic. Last year also, IFFCO launched countrywide campaigns called “#IFFCOFightsCorona” and “Break the Corona Chain”. It distributed face masks, medical soaps, sanitisers and vitamin C tablets along with free ration wherever it was required for labourers and others.