Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd has ramped up production of medical oxygen to 1,000 tonnes per day, making it India's largest producer of medical-grade liquid oxygen from a single location.
Reliance ramped up production from near-zero to 1,000 tonnes per day and now produces over 11 per cent of India's total production of medical-grade liquid oxygen - meeting the needs of nearly every one in ten patients, a company said in a statement.
Ambani is personally supervising the scale-up of production and transportation at Jamnagar in Gujarat.
In April, the firm supplied over 15,000 tonnes of medical-grade liquid oxygen free of cost. It airlifted 24 ISO containers for transporting oxygen from Saudi Arabia, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Thailand - creating an additional 500 tonnes of transportation capacity for India.
Private firms are supplementing efforts to augment oxygen supplies as the country battles its worst health crisis. India posted a record daily rise of 4,01,993 new coronavirus cases after 10 consecutive days of over 3 lakh infections. Deaths from COVID-19 jumped by 3,523 over the past 24 hours, taking the total toll in India to 2,11,853.
"As India grapples with an unprecedented new wave of the COVID pandemic, Reliance has risen to the occasion by making an all-out effort to save precious lives," the statement said.
A critical need of the hour is assured availability of medical-grade liquid oxygen for the treatment of severely ill patients across the country.
"Traditionally, Reliance is not a manufacturer of medical-grade liquid oxygen. Yet, starting from nil before the pandemic, Reliance has now become India's largest producer of this life-saving resource from a single location.
"At its refinery-cum-petrochemical complex in Jamnagar and other facilities, Reliance now produces over 1,000 tonnes of medical-grade liquid oxygen per day — or over 11 per cent of India's total production – meeting the needs of nearly every one in ten patients," it said.
