Impacts of lack of oxygen cylinders in India

India is currently facing an acute lack of oxygen cylinders due to the sharp rise of COVID-19 cases in
the country. As the COVID-19 infection affects a person’s lungs and aggrevates their pre-existing
conditions. So this makes them gasp for breath. Disesas like fungal infections are now being
widespread because of COVID-19 infections. Also when the oxygen level in body comes below 90 it
will cause the body to suffer and gasp for oxygen. All this makes external oxygen supply very
important for the body to function properly.

TO tackle this the Indian government directed all industrial oxygen production to medical oxygen
and curbed the exports of oxygen to other countries. This was done thru a series of direct orders
from the PM war room. All this oxygen was transferred to hospitals and this improved the situation a
bit.

Many Funds like the PM-CARES, private funds in this country like the Ram Mandir trust have donated
generously to this cause and set up many plants to produce the life-saving oxygen. Many NGOs also
contributed to this cause by either bying oxygen cylinders from foreign sources or setting up their
own plants producing.

The Sterlite plant in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu is now open which will produce about 1000MT of Oxygen
to provide oxygen to surrounding southern states. This will greatly benefit the people of Tamil Nadu.
Also many other private players like Ambani and Adani have come to help by producing tonnes of
oxygen and serving it for free to common people.

The main problem in our country is not oxygen production but infrastructure to transport it. This the
government has partially solved by releasing “Oxygen Express” which transports oxygen to hospitals
throught the country.