AMN / NEW DELHI
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said that India has produced three lakh metric tons of oxygen in the month of April and May this year. Out of these, two lakh metric tons of oxygen has been produced by the Steel plants and Petroleum refineries alone. Inaugurating a 100-bedded COVID hospital of Tata Steel in Dhenkanal in Odisha yesterday, the Union Steel and Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Mr Pradhan said, the steel Industries have ramped up oxygen production to fulfil the oxygen demand of the country.
Throwing more light on the contribution of Odisha to the overall oxygen production in the country, Mr. Pradhan said that in the last two months, while the Rourkela Steel Plant under the Steel Authority of India Limited at Rourkela has produced 17 thousand metric tons of Liquid Medical Oxygen, other steel plants of Tata and Jindal in Odisha have produced 38 thousand metric tonnes of medical oxygen.
Odisha has all along been a frontline state in supplying medical oxygen to many other states to meet their oxygen shortfall during the ongoing second wave of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the daily number of new COVID-19 cases in Odisha has nosedived to about 6,000 cases in the last 24 hours, even as the state’s active caseload still stands at about 77,000.