Before the potential third wave of coronavirus hits the country, India is planning to ramp up its medical oxygen production capacity to 15,000 tonnes per day, an industry executive told Reuters.
The target implies a 50% jump from the maximum output of almost 10,000 tonnes reached during the peak of the second COVID-19 wave, when hospitals ran short of the gas and relatives of patients had to search out oxygen cylinders, said the report.
Moloy Banerjee, head of Linde South Asia, said that while the Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi-led central government is targeting 15,000 tonnes of medical oxygen per day, Linde and other oxygen manufacturers were hoping to hit production of at least 13,500 tonnes per day ahead of the third wave.
Meanwhile, India logged 38,948 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,30,27,621, while the death toll climbed to 4,40,752 with 219 fresh fatalities, the lowest in 167 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.
The case fatality rate has declined to 1.33 per cent, according to the data updated at 8 am.
India had reported 199 deaths in a single day on March 23.
The active cases have declined to 4,04,874 comprising 1.23 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.44 per cent, the ministry said.
A decrease of 5,174 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.
(With PTI inputs)
