NEW DELHI: The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic rapidly developed into an unprecedented crisis for the nation, and in the midst of this grave national crisis, BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd.) has been working on war footing to do its bit for the country and fellow citizens. BHEL’s plants located at Bhopal and Haridwar, have responded to the situation with all possible resources at their command for supplying medical oxygen in and around their vicinity.
BHEL Haridwar was having a capacity to produce 24,000 CuM oxygen per day for captive use through internal pipelines. Seeing the acute shortage of medical oxygen in the country during mid-April, the plant created cylinder filling capacity for over 3000 cylinders per day in record time of one week along with putting in the entire logistics & manpower working day and night for handling over 3000 cylinders a day.
This plant has so far filled almost 67,000 cylinders (over 3,87,000 CuM) of medical oxygen for meeting requirements of hospitals and district authorities, PSUs, armed forces in Uttarakhand, UP as well as Delhi NCR, thus saving thousands of lives in this crisis.
Likewise, BHEL’s Bhopal plant has so far supplied over 1,74,000 cubic meters of oxygen (over 26,000 cylinders) to various Hospitals including Kasturba Hospital, AIIMS, Military Hospital, Railway Hospital and Police Hospital, in addition to various private Hospitals of Madhya Pradesh.
To meet emergency requirement of oxygen for medical use, BHEL’s Hyderabad unit has also revived a 40-year-old oxygen plant which was not in operation for the last 12 years. Servicing and overhauling were taken up on emergency basis and through relentless efforts, the project was completed in a record time. The plant will support hospitals through the supply of medical oxygen to the extent of about 2000 CuM per day.
Further efforts are underway for creating oxygen production capacity in other units of the company too. BHEL stands firm in its resolve to contribute wholeheartedly in meeting the national requirements.