Ludhiana district to augment medical oxygen storage capacity

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 10

The district will augment its capacity to store the medical oxygen, the administration has said.

Against the existing capacity of 65.1 metric tonnes (MT), the district has proposed to raise the storage volume to 82.1 MT, the officials have said.

The district-wise figures of current and projected oxygen storage through liquid medical oxygen (LMO) tanks at hospitals, compiled by the state government, which are available with The Tribune, revealed that Ludhiana has no LMO tank in its government hospitals and the district administration has proposed to install a LMO tank with a capacity to store 11.4 MT life-saving gas. At private hospitals in the district, existing eight LMO plants have storage capacity of 65.1 MT oxygen, which will be further augmented to 70.7 MT by setting up four more LMO plants.

In the entire state, there are only eight LMO tanks in the government hospitals with a storage capacity of 37.3 MT, while 27 additional LMO tanks have been proposed to be set up, which will further add 248.5 MT storage capacity for the life-saving gas. In the private sector, 52 LMO tanks have storage capacity of 315.48 MT, while 20 more such tanks are proposed to be set up to add 121.91 MT storage volume.

With this, the total LMO tanks in the government sector will go up to 35 and private sector to 72 with a storage capacity of 285.9 MT in government and 437.39 MT in private hospitals.

The district-wise break-up showed that Amritsar has four LMO plants, proposed to install four more, Bathinda has 15 and proposed nine, Faridkot one existing, Barnala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Fazilka, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Kapurthala, Mansa, Moga, Ropar, Tarn Taran, Malerkotla proposed one each, Hoshiarpur existing two and proposed one, Jalandhar existing six and proposed two, Muktsar existing one and proposed one, Pathankot existing one and proposed one, Patiala existing three and proposed three, Mohali existing 14 and proposed four, Sangrur existing two and proposed two and Nawnashahr existing three and proposed three. Besides, the state has 41 LMO tanks at the refilling stations with a storage capacity of 676.1 MT of medical oxygen.

These included maximum 10 in Ludhiana with highest capacity of 129.9 MT of storing life-saving gas, followed by Amritsar and Fatehgarh Sahib five each with 96 MT and 30 MT storage capacity, respectively, Bathinda and Jalandhar four each with 40 MT and 88 MT each, respectively, Mohali, Patiala and Sangrur two each with 76 MT, 55 MT and 41 MT each, respectively, Fazilka, Hoshiarpur, Moga, Pathankot, Muktsar, Mansa and Faridkot have one LMO tank each with capacity to store 18 MT, 18 MT, 20 MT, 14 MT, 20 MT, 20 MT and 11 MT each, respectively.

However, Ropar and newly created Malerkotla districts have no LMO tanks at the refilling units.

Officialspeak

We will be adding five more LMO tanks — one in government and four in private hospitals — to add 82.1 MT storage capacity for medical oxygen in the district. —Varinder Kumar Sharma, Deputy Commissioner

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