Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday said it will soon deliver 22 oxygen generators to various hospitals across India to address the severe crunch of oxygen for COVID-19 patients in the country “L&T will soon start delivering 22 oxygen generators to various hospitals in India, where the scarcity is most acute. These units will absorb air from the atmosphere before converting it into medical-grade oxygen and pumping it into pre-existing pipes in the hospitals,” the company said in a regulatory filing.
L&T said of these, the parts of the first tranche of nine equipments will reach India by May 9. These will be progressively delivered from May 15 to hospitals that are in acute need and do not possess required infrastructure to receive bulk oxygen supply, the company added. L&T CEO and MD S N Subrahmanyan said, “This is an unprecedented situation, and we are extremely pained by the consequences of the dire shortage of oxygen… Our teams in India and abroad have, with single-minded attention in the last few days, been able to procure the oxygen generators and other components to assemble PSA (pressure swing absorption technique) units”.
L&T said it is working on war footing to build medical grade oxygen generation units. Each unit could cater to hospitals or medical facilities with over 1,750 beds, the company said, adding that these permanent units will serve the hospitals for the next 10-15 years.